, ; ™: !: :i^::;:v^:.; 






Book lA4 - 



RECOLLECTIONS 






TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL 'ROGERS. 



TO WHICH IS ADDED 



P R S N I A N A. 



-— ^2&3> 



LOXDOX: 
EDWARD MOXOtf, DOVER STEEET. 

MDCCCLVI. 



JF f 



- y 



X 



PREFACE, 



Samuel Eogees was born at Stoke Xewington, 30th July 
1763. His first publication, An Ode to Superstition, with 
some other Poems, appeared in 1786 • at which period the 
coldly classic Mason (then a veteran) and the feeble Hay- 
ley were perhaps the most popular of our living poets : 
Cowper, though The Task* was in print, had scarcely 
won all his fame ; Crabbe had put forth only his earlier 
pieces; and Darwin was yet to come. By The Pleasures 
of Memory, in 1792, Mr. Eogers rose to high reputation; 
which he fully maintained by his Epistle to a Friend, 
icith other Poems, in 1798. He gave nothing new to the 
public till 1812, when he added Columbus^ to a re-im- 
pression of his Poems. It was succeeded, in 1814 by his 

* The second volume of Cowper's Poems, containing The Task, 
is noticed with high praise in The Gentleman's Magazine for Dec. 
1785. 

f See p. 152 (note) in the present volume. 



vi PREFACE. 

Jacqueline, in 1819 by his Human Life, and in 1822 by 
the First Part* of his Italy , which was not completed 
till several years after, and which closes the series of 
his works. During the long remainder of his days he 
confined himself to a few copies of occasional verses, one 
of them composed so late as 1853. t — Of all that Mr, 
Rogers has written, The Pleasures of Memory and the 
Epistle to a Friend have been generally the most, ad- 
mired : it is questionable, however, if Human Life will 
not be regarded by posterity as his master-piece, — as 
pre-eminent in feeling, in graceful simplicity of diction, 
and in freedom of versification. 

Mr. Rogers commenced life by performing the duties 
of a clerk in his father's banking-house : but after in- 
heriting a large share of the concern, he ceased to take 
an active part in its management ; and, himself an object 
of interest to society, he associated on familiar terms, 
during more than two generations, with all who were 
most distinguished for rank and political influence, or 
most eminent in literature and art. — Genius languishing 
for want of patronage was sure to find in Mr. Rogers a 

* Published anonymously: see Literary Gazette for January 19, 
1822, where its reviewer thinks "there can be little hesitation in 
ascribing it to Southey." 

f See the lines, " Hence to the altar," &c, in his Poems, p. 305, 
ed. 1853. 



PEEFACE. vii 

generous patron. His purse was ever open to the dis- 
tressed : — of the prompt assistance which he rendered in 
the hour of need to various well-known individuals there 
is ample record ; but of his many acts of kindness and 
charity to the wholly obscure there is no memorial — at 
least on earth. 

The taste of Mr. Rogers had been cultivated to the 
utmost refinement; and, till the failure of his mental 
powers a short time previous to his death, he retained 
that love of the beautiful which was in him a passion : 
when more than ninety, and a prisoner to his chair, he 
still delighted to watch the changing colours of the even- 
ing sky, — to repeat passages of his favourite poets, — 
or to dwell on the merits of the great painters whose 
works adorned his walls. — By slow decay, and without 
any suffering, he died in St. James's Place, 18th December 
1855. 

From my first introduction to Mr. Kogers, I was in 
the habit of writing down, in all their rninutise, the 
anecdotes, &c. with which his conversation abounded : 
and once on my telling him that I did so, he expressed 
himself pleased, — the rather, perhaps, because he some- 
times had the mortification of finding impatient listeners. 
Of those memoranda, which gradually accumulated to a 
large mass, a selection is contained in the following 



viii PREFACE. 

pages; the subjects being arranged (as far as such mis- 
cellaneous matter would admit of arrangement) under 
distinct heads ; and nothing having been inserted which 
was likely to hurt the feelings of the living. 

EDITOR. 



RECOLLECTIONS 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 



I was taught by my mother, from my earliest in- 
fancy, to be tenderly kind towards the meanest liv- 
ing thing ; and, however people may laugh, I some- 
times very carefully put a stray gnat or wasp out 
at the window. — My friend Lord Holland, though a 
kind-hearted man, does not mind killing flies and 
wasps; he says, "I have no feeling for insects"— 
When I was on the Continent with Richard Sharp, 
we one day observed a woman amusing her child by 
holding what we at first thought was a mouse tied 
to a string, with which a cat was playing. Sharp 
was all indignation at the sight; till, on looking 
more closely, he found that the supposed mouse was 

B 



2 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

a small rat ; upon which he exclaimed, ' e Oh, I have 
no pity for rats /" — People choose to give the term 
vermin to those animals that happen to like what 
they themselves like ; wasps eat peaches, and they 
call them vermin. — I can hardly persuade myself 
that there is no compensation in a future existence 
for the sufferings of animals in the present life,* — 
for instance, when I see a horse in the streets un- 
mercifully flogged by its brutal driver. 



I well remember one of the heads of the rebels 
upon a pole at Temple-Bar, — a black shapeless 
lump. Another pole was bare, the head having 
dropt from it.f 



In my childhood, after doing any thing wrong, I 
used always to feel miserable from a consciousness 

* Compare a poem On the Future Existence of Brutes, by Miss 
Seward,— Poet. Works, ii. 58.— Ed. 

f " The last heads which remained on the Bar were those of 
Fletcher and Townley. * Yesterday/ says a news-writer of the 
1st of April 1772, 'one of the rebels' heads on Temple Bar fell 
down. There is only one head now remaining.'" P. Cunning- 
ham's Handbook of London, sub Temple-Bar.— -Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 3 

of having done it : my parents were quite aware of 
this, and therefore seldom reproved me for a fault, 
— leaving me to reprove myself. 

When I was about thirteen, my father and mo- 
ther gave a great children's ball, at which many 
grown-up folks were also present. I was dancing 
a minuet with a pretty little girl ; and at the mo- 
ment when I ought to have put on my <hat and given 
both hands to my partner, I threw the hat among 
the young ladies who were sitting on benches, and 
so produced great surprise and confusion in the 
room. This strange feat was occasioned by my sud- 
denly recollecting a story of some gallant youth 
who had signalised himself in the same way. 



In my boyhood, my father one day called me 
and my brothers into his room, and asked us each 
what professions we wished to follow. When my 
turn came, I said (to my father's annoyance) that 
I should like " to be a preacher;" for it was then 
the height of my ambition to figure in a pulpit ; — 
I thought there was nothing on earth so grand. 
This predilection, I believe, was occasioned chiefly 



4 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

by the admiration I felt for Dr. Price and for his 
preaching. He was our neighbour (at Newington 



Green), and would often drop in, to spend the 
evening with us, in his dressing-gown : he would 
talk, and read the Bible, to us, till he sent us to bed 
in a frame of mind as heavenly as his own. He 
lived much in the society of Lord Lansdowne and 
other people of rank; and his manners were ex- 
tremely polished. In the pulpit he was great in- 
deed, — making his hearers forget the preacher and 
think only of the subject. The passage " On Virtue," 
cited from Price in Enfield's Speaker, is a very 
favourite one with me, though probably it is quite 
unknown to readers of the present day. 

[" IN PRAISE OF VIRTUE. 

" Virtue is of intrinsic value and good desert, 
and of indispensable obligation; not the creature of 
will, but necessary and immutable ; not local or tem- 
porary, but of equal extent and antiquity with the 
Divine Mind ; not a mode of sensation, but ever- 
lasting Truth ; not dependent on power, but the 
guide of all power. Virtue is the foundation of 
honour and esteem, and the source of all beauty, 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGERS. 5 

order, and happiness in nature. It is what confers 
value on all the other endowments and qualities of 
a reasonable being, to which they ought to be ab- 
solutely subservient, and without which, the more 
eminent they are, the more hideous deformities and 
the greater curses they become. The use of it is 
not confined to any one stage of our existence, or 
to any particular situation we can be in, but reaches 
through all the periods and circumstances of our 
being. — Many of the endowments and talents we 
now possess, and of which we are too apt to be 
proud, will cease entirely with the present state ; 
but this will be our ornament and dignity in every 
future state to which we may be removed. Beauty 
and wit will die, learning will vanish away, and all 
the arts of life be soon forgot ; but virtue will re- 
main for ever. This unites us to the whole rational 
creation, and fits us for conversing with any order 
of superior natures, and for a place in any part of 
God's works. It procures us the approbation and 
love of all wise and good beings, and renders them 
our allies and friends. — But what is of unspeakably 
greater consequence is, that it makes God our friend, 
assimilates and unites our minds to his, and engages 



6 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

his almighty power in our defence. — Superior beings 
of all ranks are bound by it no less than ourselves. 
It has the same authority in all worlds that it has 
in this. The further any being is advanced in ex- 
cellence and perfection, the greater is his attach- 
ment to it, and the more he is under its influence. — 
To say no more ; it is the Law of the whole uni- 
verse ; it stands first in the estimation of the Deity ; 
its original is his nature ; and it is the very object 
that makes him lovely. 

" Such is the importance of virtue. — Of what 
consequence, therefore, is it that we practise it ! — 
There is no argument or motive which is at all fitted 
to influence a reasonable mind, which does not call 
us to this. One virtuous disposition of soul is pre- 
ferable to the greatest natural accomplishments and 
abilities, and of more value than all the treasures 
of the world. — If you are wise, then, study virtue, 
and contemn every thing that can come in compe- 
tition with it. Remember, that nothing else de- 
serves one anxious thought or wish. Remember, 
that this alone is honour, glory, wealth, and happi- 
ness. Secure this, and you secure every thing. 
Lose this, and all is lost."] 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGEES. 7 

My father belonged originally to the Church of 
England ; but, soon after his marriage with my 
mother (a very handsome and very amiable woman), 
he withdrew from it at her persuasion, and became 
one of Dr. Price's hearers. 



When I was a school-boy, I wore, like other 
school-boys, a cocked hat; — we used to run about 
the fields, chasing butterflies, in cocked hats. Af- 
ter growing up, I have walked through St. Paul's 
Churchyard in a cocked hat. 



I saw Garrick act only once, — the part of Ranger 
in The Suspicious Husband. I remember that there 
was a great crowd, and that we waited long in a 
dark passage of the theatre, on our way to the pit. 
I was then a little boy. My father had promised to 
take me to see Garrick in Lear; but a fit of the 
mumps kept me at home. 

Before his going abroad, Garrick's attraction had 
much decreased ; Sir William Weller Pepys said 
that the pit was often almost empty. But, on his 



8 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

return to England, people were mad about seeing 
him ; and Sir George Beaumont and several others 
used frequently to get admission into the pit, before 
the doors were opened to the public, by means of 
bribing the attendants, who bade them " be sure, as 
soon as the crowd rushed in, to pretend to be in a 
great heat, and to wipe their faces, as if they had 
just been struggling for entrance." 

Jack Bannister told me, that one night he was 
behind the scenes of the theatre when Garrick was 
playing Lear ; and that the tones in which Garrick 
uttered the words, " O fool, I shall go mad!"* ab- 
solutely thrilled him. 

Garrick used to pay an annual visit to Lord Spen- 
cer at Althorp ; where, after tea, he generally enter- 
tained the company by reading scenes from Shake- 
speare. Thomas Grenville,f who met him there, 
told me that Garrick would steal anxious glances at 

* " You think I'll weep ; 

iNo, I'll not weep. 

I have full cause of weeping ; but this heart 
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws 
Or ere I'll weep. — O fool, I shall go mad!" 

King Lear, act ii. sc. 4. — Ed. 

t The Eight Honourable T. G.— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 9 

the faces of his audience, to perceive what effect his 
reading produced ; that, one night, Grarrick observed 
a lady listening to him very attentively, and yet never 
moving a muscle of her countenance ; and that, speak- 
ing of her next day, he said, " She seems a very wor- 
thy person; but I hope that — that— that she won't 
be present at my reading to-night."— Another even- 
ing at Al thorp, when Garrick was about to exhibit 
some particular stage-effect of which they had been 
talking, a young gentleman got up and placed the 
candles upon the floor, that the light might be thrown 
on his face as from the lamps in the theatre. Gar- 
rick, displeased at his officiousness, immediately sat 
down again. 



My friend Maltby* and I, when we were very 
young men, had a strong desire to see Dr. Johnson: 
and we determined to call upon him and introduce 
ourselves. We accordingly proceeded to his house 
in Bolt Court ; and I had my hand on the knocker, 
when our courage failed us, and we retreated. Many 
years afterwards, I mentioned this circumstance to 

* See notice at the commencement of the Porsoniana in this vol. 
—Ed, 



10 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Boswell, who said, " What a pity that you did not 
go boldly in ! he would have received you with all 
kindness." 

Dr. Johnson said to an acquaintance of mine, " My 
other works are wine and water ; but my Rambler 
is pure wine." The world now thinks differently. 

Lady Spencer recollected Johnson well, as she 
used to see him often in her girlhood. Her mother, 
Lady Lucan, would say, " Nobody dines with us 
to-day ; therefore, child, we'll go and get Dr. John- 
son." So they would drive to Bolt Court, and bring 
the doctor home with them. 



At the sale of Dr. Johnson's books, I met Gene- 
ral Oglethorpe, then very, very old, the flesh of his 
face looking like parchment. He amused us young- 
sters by talking of the alterations that had been 
made in London and of the great additions it had 
received within his recollection. He said that he 
had shot snipes in Conduit-Street! 

By the by, General Fitzpatrick remembered the 
time when St. James's Street used to be crowded 
with the carriages of the ladies and gentlemen who 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGEKS. 11 

were walking in the Mall, — the ladies with their 
heads in full dress, and the gentlemen carrying their 
hats under their arms. The proprietors of Ranelagh 
and Vauxhall used to send decoy-ducks among them, 
that is, persons attired in the height of fashion, who 
every now and then would exclaim in a very audible 
tone, " What charming weather for Ranelagh" or 
" for Vauxhall!' 5 

Ranelagh was a very pleasing place of amuse- 
ment. There persons of inferior rank mingled with 
the highest nobility of Britain. All was so orderly 
and still, that you could hear the whisking sound of 
the ladies' trains, as the immense assembly walked 
round and round the room. If you chose, you might 
have tea, which was served up in the neatest equi- 
page possible. The price of admission was half-a- 
crown. People generally went to Ranelagh between 
nine and ten o'clock. 



My first attempt at authorship was a series of 
papers headed The Scribbler,* which appeared in 

* The Scribbler extends to eight Numbers,— in The Gentleman's 
Magazine for 1781, pp. 68, 119, 168, 218, 259, 306, 355, 405 (mis- 



12 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

The Gentleman s Magazine, — for what year I forget. 
I have never looked at them since : I daresay they 
are sad trash. 

["the scribbler, no. IV. 

" O Tempora ! O Mores ! 

" The degeneracy of the age has ever been the 
favourite theme of declamation : yet, when the sub- 
ject has been attentively examined, the Moderns 
will not appear inferior to the Ancients. 

" Greece and Rome shine with peculiar lustre in 
the page of history. The former contained several 
states, the principal of which were Lacedaemon and 
Athens. 

" Devoted entirely to war, the Spartans were 
brave, frugal, and temperate ; but divested of every 
sentiment of humanity. The reduction of Athens 
and the capture of Cadmea, the execution of Agis 
and the barbarity exercised on the Helotes, reflect 
indelible disgrace on the annals of Lacedaemon. 

paged 409), (several of the references to which in The General 
Index to that work are wrong). The first Number is signed 
u g***** j^*****'> These juvenile essays are on various subjects, 
and quite up to the standard of the periodical writing of the time. 
I have given, as a curiosity, No. 4 entire. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 13 

" With a delicate taste and a fine imagination, 
the Athenians were vain, inconstant, and irresolute. 
If no nation ever produced more great men, no 
nation ever behaved to them with such ingratitude. 
Miltiades died in prison ; Aristides, Themistocles, 
and Cimon, were banished; Socrates and Phocion 
were condemned to suffer death. The rest of Greece 
does not present a scene more honourable to human 
nature. 

" Individuals appeared among the Romans who 
merit the highest encomiums. Their national cha- 
racter, however, was haughty and oppressive. The 
destruction of Carthage and Xumantia, the murder 
of the Gracchi, their injustice to the Aricians and 
the Ardeates, their triumphs and their gladiatorial 
combats, sully the glory they acquired from their 
patriotism, moderation, and valour, 

" Such were the Ancients ; while they cultivated 
the severer, they neglected the milder virtues ; and 
were more ambitious of exciting the admiration than 
of deserving the esteem of posterity. 

" Examples of heroic virtue cannot occur so fre- 
quently among the Moderns as the Ancients, from 
the nature of their political institutions; yet Eng- 



14 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

land, Holland, and Switzerland, are entitled to 
greater applause than the celebrated republics of 
antiquity. 

" Generosity, sincerity, and a love of indepen- 
dence, are the characteristics of the English. No 
nation had ever juster ideas of liberty, or fixed it 
on a firmer basis. They have concerted innumerable 
establishments in favour of the indigent, and have 
even frequently raised subscriptions for the relief 
of their enemies, when reduced to captivity. Their 
conduct indeed in India has been excessively unjust. 
Nor can this appear surprising to those who reflect, 
that India is under the direction of a commercial 
society, conducted by its members in a distant 
country; and that its climate is fatal to the consti- 
tutions of the Europeans, who visit it only with the 
design of suddenly amassing wealth, and are anxious 
to return as soon as that design is accomplished. 

ts Holland, however circumscribed in its extent, 
has acquired liberty by a war of above half a cen- 
tury, and risen to the highest rank among the powers 
of Europe. Though the Dutch are universally en- 
gaged in lucrative pursuits, neither their sentiments 
are contracted, nor their ideas confined. They have 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 15 

erected edifices in which age may repose, and sick- 
ness be relieved ; and have often liberally contri- 
buted to the support of the persecuted. The de- 
struction of the De Witts was entirely the result of 
a momentary passion. 

" Sheltered within the fastnesses of their native 
mountains, the Swiss look down with security on the 
revolutions around them. Though never actuated 
with the spirit of conquest, they have exhibited acts 
of the most exalted heroism in defence of their 
country. Industrious, yet liberal ; simple, yet en- 
lightened ; their taste is not vitiated, nor their man- 
ners corrupted, by the refinements of luxury. 

" That the Moderns are not inferior to the An- 
cients in virtue, is obvious therefore on a review of 
the nations that have acted with most honour in the 
grand theatre of the world. The present mode of 
conducting war, not to mention any other instance, 
is the most humane and judicious that has yet been 
adopted. 

" Let us not then depreciate tm? Moderns. Let 
us admire, let us imitate, what is laudable in anti- 
quity, but be just to the merits of our contem- 
poraries."] 



16 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

The first poetry I published was the Ode to Super- 
stition, in 1786. I wrote it while I was in my teens, 
and afterwards touched it up.* I paid down to the 
publisher thirty pounds to insure him from being 
a loser by it. At the end of four years, I found that 
he had sold about twenty copies. However, I was 
consoled by reading in a critique on the Ode that I 
was "an able writer," or some such expression. — The 
short copy of verses entitled Captivity was also com- 
posed when I was a very young man. It was a 
favourite with Hookham Frere, who said that it re- 
sembled a Greek epigram. 

My lines To the Gnat, which some of the re- 
viewers laughed at, were composed in consequence 
of my sufferings from the attacks of that insect 
while I lived at Newington Green. My eyes used to 
be absolutely swollen up with gnat-bites. I awoke 
one morning in that condition when I was engaged 
to spend the day at Streatham with Mr. and Mrs. 
Piozzi, to meet Miss Farren (afterwards Lady Derby) ; 
and it was onl^ by the application of laudanum to 
my wounds that I was enabled to keep my engage- 

* According to a note in Mr. K. ? s collected poems, it was " writ- 
ten in 1785."— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGERS. 17 

ment. Nothing could exceed the elegance and re- 
finement of Miss Farren's appearance and manners. 

People have taken the trouble to write my Life 
more than once ; and strange assertions they have 
made both about myself and my works. In one 
biographical account it is stated that I submitted 
The Pleasures of Memory in manuscript to the cri- 
tical revision of Richard Sharp : now, when that 
poem was first published, I had not yet formed an 
acquaintance with Sharp (who was introduced to 
me by the oldest of my friends, Maltby*). The 
beautiful lines, " Pleasures of Memory ! — oh, su- 
premely blest," &c, which I have inserted in a note 
on Part Second, were composed by a Mr. Soame,f 
who died in India in 1803, at which time he was a 
lieutenant in the dragoons. I believe that he de- 
stroyed himself. I had heard that the lines were 
in a certain newspaper, and went to Peel's Coffee- 
house to see that paper: there I first read them, and 
there I transcribed them. 

On the publication of The Pleasures of Memory, 

I sent a copy to Mason, who never acknowledged it. 

* See notice at the commencement of the Porsoniana in this vol. 
—Ed. 

f See The Correspondence of Sir T. Hanmer, &c. p. 481. — Ed. 



18 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

I learned, however, from Gilpin, and to my great 
satisfaction, that Mason, in a letter to him, had 
spoken well of it; — he pronounced it to be very 
different in style from the poetry of the day. 

During my whole life I have borne in mind the 
speech of a woman to Philip of Macedon ; " I appeal 
from Philip drunk to Philip sober." After writing 
any thing in the excitement of the moment, and 
being greatly pleased with it, I have always put it 
by for a day or two ; and then carefully considering 
it in every possible light, I have altered it to the best 
of my judgment ; thus appealing from myself drunk 
to myself sober. I was engaged on The Pleasures of 
Memory for nine years ; on Human Life for nearly 
the same space of time ; and Italy was not completed 
in less than sixteen years.* 



I was present when Sir Joshua Reynolds delivered 

* I was with Mr. Rogers when he tore to pieces, and threw into 
the fire, a manuscript operatic drama, The Vintage of Burgundy, 
which he had written early in life. He told me that he offered it 
to a manager, who said, " I will bring it on the stage, if you are 
determined to have it acted ; but it will certainly be damned" One 
or two songs, which now appear among his poems, formed parts of 
that drama. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 19 

his last lecture at the Royal Academy. On entering 
the room, I found that a semicircle of chairs, im- 
mediately in front of the pulpit, was reserved for 
persons of distinction, being labelled " Mr. Burke," 
" Mr. Boswell/' &c. &c. ; and I, with other young 
men, was forced to station myself a good way off. 
During the lecture, a great crash was heard ; and 
the company, fearing that the building was about 
to come down, rushed towards the door. Presently, 
however, it appeared that there was no cause for 
alarm;* and they endeavoured to resume their places; 
but, in consequence of the confusion, the reserved 
seats were now occupied by those who could first 
get into them ; and I, pressing forwards, secured one 
of them. Sir Joshua concluded the lecture by say- 
ing, with great emotion, " And I should desire that 
the last words which I should pronounce in this Aca- 
demy and from this place might be the name of — 
Michael Angelo." As he descended from the ros- 
trum, Burke went up to him, took his hand, and said, 

* There was cause for alarm. " On an examination of the floor 
afterwards, it was found that one of the beams for its support had 
actually given way from the great weight of the assembly of per- 
sons who pressed upon it, and probably from a flaw also in the 
wood." Xorthcote'sZz/e of Reynolds, ii. 263, ed. 1819.— Ed. 



20 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

" The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear 
So charming left his voice, that he a while 
Thought him still speaking, still stood fix'd to hear." * 

What a quantity of snuff Sir Joshua took ! I 
once saw him at an Academy- dinner, when his waist- 
coat was absolutely powdered with it. 

Sir Joshua was always thinking of his art. He 
was one day walking with Dr. Lawrence near Bea- 
consfield, when they met a beautiful little peasant- 
boy. Sir Joshua, after looking earnestly at the child, 
exclaimed, " I must go home and deepen the colour- 
ing of my Infant Hercules." The boy was a good 
deal sun-burnt. 

Count d'Adhemar was the original purchaser of 
Sir Joshua's Muscipula. Sir Joshua, who fancied 
that he was bargaining for a different and less im- 
portant picture, told him that the price was fifty 
guineas ; and on discovering the mistake, allowed 
him to have Muscipula for that sum. — Fox had 
been anxious to possess Muscipula when it was first 
painted ; and he bought it at the Ambassador's sale 
for (I believe) fifty guineas. It is now at St. Anne's 

* Par. Lost, b. viii. 1. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 21 

Hill. It would fetch, at the present day, a thousand 
guineas. 

The morning of the day on which Sir Joshua's 
Puck was to be sold, Lord Farnborough and Dance 
the painter breakfasted with me; and we went to 
the sale together. When Puck was put up, it excited 
such admiration, that there was a general clapping of 
hands : yet it was knocked down to me at a compa- 
ratively trifling price.* I walked home from the sale, 
a man carrying Puck before me ; and so well was 
the picture known, that more than one person, as 
they passed us in the street, called out, " There it 
is!" 

I like Xorthcote's Life of Sir Joshua :f it may 

* " "When the Shakespeare Gallery was disposed of by lottery. 
the building itself, and many of the capital pictures, formed the 
principal prize, which was won by Mr. Tassie of Leicester Square, 
who, after showing it a few months, divided the property into seve- 
ral lots, and sold them by auction. In that sale the pictures of 
Sir Joshua produced the following sums, which are here contrasted 
with the prices paid to Sir Joshua by Mr. Boydell : 

Prices paid to Sir Joshua by Prices for which they sold by 
Mr. Boydell. auction. 

****** ****** 

Puck or Robin Good Fellow, 

100 guineas. £215 os 0." 

Edwards's Anecdotes of Painters, &c. p. 204. 
f " Xorthcote assured the writer of these pages that Laird, not 



22 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

be depended upon for facts ; and, of course, North- 
cote was a very competent critic in painting. 

I can hardly believe what was told me long ago 
by a gentleman living in the Temple, who, however, 
assured me that it was fact. He happened to be 
passing by Sir Joshua's house in Leicester Square, 
when he saw a poor girl seated on the steps and cry- 
ing bitterly. He asked what was the matter ; and 
she replied that she was crying "because the one 
shilling which she had received from Sir Joshua for 
sitting to him as a model, had proved to be a bad 
one, and he would not give her another." 



I recollect when it was still the fashion for gentle- 
men to wear swords. I have seen Haydn play at a 
concert in a tie-wig, with a sword at his side. 



The head-dresses of the ladies, during my youth, 
were of a truly preposterous size. I have gone to 

himself, procured the greater part of the materials for the Life of 
Sir Joshua, and put them together ; his own part was small, and 
confined chiefly to criticism on art and artists." Prior's Life of 
Goldsmith, vol. ii. 572.— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 23 

Ranelagh in a coach with a lady who was obliged to 
sit upon a stool placed in the bottom of the coach, 
the height of her head-dress not allowing her to 
occupy the regular seat. 

Their tight lacing was equally absurd. Lady 
Crewe told me, that, on returning home from Rane- 
lagh, she has rushed up to her bed-room, and desired 
her maid to cut her laces without a moment's delay, 
for fear she should faint. 



Doctor Fordyce sometimes drank a good deal at 
dinner. He was summoned one evening to see a 
lady patient, when he was more than half-seas-over, 
and conscious that he was so. Feeling her pulse, 
and finding himself unable to count its beats, he 
muttered, " Drunk, by God!" Xext morning, re- 
collecting the circumstance, he was greatly vexed : 
and just as he was thinking what explanation of his 
behaviour he should offer to the lady, a letter from 
her was put into his hand. " She too well knew," 
said the letter, " that he had discovered the unfor- 
tunate condition in which she was when he last 
visited her ; and she entreated him to keep the mat- 



24 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

ter secret in consideration of the enclosed (a hundred- 
pound bank-note)." 



I have several times talked to a very aged boat- 
man on the Thames, who recollected " Mr. Alex- 
ander Pope." This boatman, when a lad, had fre- 
quently assisted his father in rowing Pope up and 
down the river. On such occasions Pope generally 
sat in a sedan-chair. 

When I first began to publish, I got acquainted 
with an elderly person named Lawless,* shopman of 
Messrs. Cadell and Davies the booksellers. Lawless 
told me, that he was once walking through Twicken- 
ham, accompanied by a friend, and a little boy the 
son of that friend. On the approach of a very dimi- 
nutive, misshapen, and shabbily-dressed person, the 
child drew back half-afraid. " Don't be alarmed," 

* This Lawless (as I was informed by Mr. Maltby, — see notice 
prefixed to the Porsoniana, in this vol.) used daily to eat his dinner 
in the shop, placing a large folio before him so as to conceal his 
plate. Often, to his great annoyance, just as he was beginning his 
meal, Gibbon w r ould drop in, and ask a variety of questions about 
books. One day, Lawless, out of all patience at the interruption, 
exclaimed from behind the folio, "Mr. Gibbon, I'm at dinner, and 
can't answer any questions till I have finished it." — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 25 

said Lawless ; " it is only a poor man." — " A poor 
man!" cried his friend: "why, that is Mr. Alexan- 
der Pope." 

Lawless also told me that he had been intimate 
with the waiting-maid of Pope's beloved Martha 
Blount. According to the maid's account, her mis- 
tress was one of the best-natured and kindest per- 
sons possible : she w T ould take her out in the car- 
riage to see sights, &c. &c. 

Long ago, when Pope's villa was for sale, I had 
a great wish to buy it ; but I apprehended that it 
would fetch a much larger sum than it did ; and 
moreover I dreaded the epigrams, &c, which would 
certainly have been levelled at me, if it had become 
mine. — The other day, when the villa was finally 
dismantled, I was anxious that the obelisk erected 
by Pope to his mother's memory should be placed 
in the gardens at Hampton Court, and I offered to 
contribute my mite for that purpose :— but, no ! — 
and the obelisk is now at Gopsall, Lord Howe's seat 
in Leicestershire. 

There are at Lord Bathurst's a good many un- 
published letters of Pope, Bolingbroke, &c, which I 
have turned over. In one of them Bolingbroke says 



26 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

that he has no desire to " wrestle with a chimney- 
sweeper/' that is, Warburton. — Lady Bathurst pro- 
mised to send me some of Pope's letters : instead of 
which, she sent me a packet of letters from Queen 
Mary to King William, in which he is addressed 
as her " dear husba^."* 

In Pope's noble lines To the Earl of Oxford, 
prefixed to ParnelVs Poems, there is an impropriety 
which was forced upon the poet by the rhyme ; 

" The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade : 

# ' X 45- * * # # 

She waits, or to the scaffold or the cell, 

When the last lingering friend has bid farewell." 

It should be, of course, " or to the cell or the scaf- 
fold." 

* "Lord Bathurst has lent me a very entertaining collection of 
original letters, from Pope, Bolingbroke, Swift, Queen Mary, &c, 
and has promised to make me a present of any thing I like out of 
them. I cannot say these communications have given me a very 
great idea of Queen Mary's head ; but her heart, I am persuaded, 
was a very good one. The defect must have been in her educa- 
tion; for such spelling and such English I never saw; romantic 
and childish too, as to sentiment. My reverence for her many 
virtues leads me to hope she was very young when she wrote 
them." Letter of Hannah More, in her Memoirs, &c. vol. i. 358, 
third ed. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 27 

Pope has sometimes a beautiful line rhyming to 
a very indifferent one. For instance, in the Epistle 
to Jew as, 

" Alas, how little from the grave we claim ! 
Thou hut preserr st a face, and I a name r 

the latter line is very good : in the former, " claim" 
is forced and had; it should have been "save" or 
i( preserve." Again, in the Elegy to the Memory of 
an Unfortunate Lady, 

u A heap of dust alone remains of thee ; 
"lis all thou art, and all the proud shall be," 

the former line is touching, the latter bad. 

"What a charming line is that in The Rape of the 
Loch ! 

" If to her share some female errors fall, 
Look on her face, and you'll forget them all" 

These verses in his Imitation of the Second Epistle 
of the Second Booh of Horace (verses which Lord 
Holland is so fond of hearing me repeat) are as good 
as any in Horace himself; 

" Years following years, steal something every day, 
At last they steal us from ourselves away; 



28 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

In one our frolics, one amusements end, 
In one a mistress drops, in one a friend." 

But perhaps the best line Pope ever wrote is in 
his Imitation of the First Satire of the Second Book 
of Horace ; 

" Bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a star." 

The want of pauses is the main blemish in Pope's 
versification: I can't recollect at this moment any 
pause he has, except that in his fine Prologue to 
Cato ; 

" The triumph ceas'd; tears gush'd from every eye ;] 
The world's great victor pass'd unheeded by." 

People are now so fond of the obscure in poetry, 
that they can perceive no deep thinking in that dar- 
ling man Pope, because he always expresses himself 
with such admirable clearness. 

My father used to recommend Pope's Homer to 
me: but, with all my love of Pope, I never could 
like it. (I delight in Cowper's Homer ; I have read 
it again and again.*) 

* Thomas Campbell once told me how greatly he admired 
Cowper's Homer : he said that he used to read it to his wife, who 
was moved even to tears by some passages of it. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 29 

The article on Pope in The Quarterly Review* 
was certainly touched up by Gifford : in some places 
it is beyond the powers of DTsraeli. 



Pope is not to be compared to Dryden for varied 
harmony of versification ; nor for ease ; — how natur- 
ally the words follow each other in this couplet of 
Dry dens in the Second Part of Absalom and Achi- 
tophel/ 

" The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull, 
With this prophetic blessing — Be thou dull /" 

and in that touching one in his Epistle to Congreve, 
" Be kind to my remains ; and, O, defend, 
Against your judgment, your departed friend !" 

Dryden's Virgil is, on the whole, a failure ; but 
I am not sure that it does not exhibit the best speci- 
mens of his versification : in that work he had not to 
tax his invention ; he had only to think of the ex- 
pression and versification. It contains one thing, 
in the supplication of Turnus to iEneas, which is 
finer than the original ; 

* Vol. xxiii. 400.— Ed. 



30 EECOLLECTIONS OE THE 

" Yet think, 0, think, if mercy may be shown, — 
Thou hadst a father once, and hast a son, — 
Pity my sire," &c. 

Virgil's words are : 

" Miseri te si qua parentis 
Tangere cur a potest, oro, — fuit et tibi talis 
Anchises genitor, — Dauni miserere senectse," &c. # 



I sometimes wonderf how a man can ever be 
cheerful, when he knows that he must die. But 
what poets write about the horrors of the grave makes 
not the slightest impression upon me ; for instance, 
what Dryden says ; 

" Vain men ! how vanishing a bliss we crave ! 
Now warm in love, now withering in the grave ! 
Never, O, never more, to see the sun, 
Still dark, in a damp vault, and still alone !"$ 

* Mn, xii. 932.— -Ed. 

f Mr. Kogers once made the same remark to Mr. Luttrell, who 
versified it as follows ; 

" O death, thy certainty is such 

And thou'rt a thing so fearful, 
That, musing, I have wonder' d much 
How men were ever cheerful." — Ed. 
\ Palamon and Arcite, b. iii. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 31 

All this is unphilosophical ; in fact, nonsense. The 
body, when the soul has left it, is as worthless as 
an old garment, — rather more so, for it rots much 
sooner. — The lines of Dryden which I have just 
quoted (and which are modernised from Chaucer) 
were great favourites with Sheridan ; I seem now to 
hear him reciting them. 



Sir George Beaumont once met Quin at a very 
small dinner-party. There was a delicious pudding, 
which the master of the house, pushing the dish to- 
wards Quin, begged him to taste. A gentleman had 
just before helped himself to an immense piece of 
it. " Pray," said Quin, looking first at the gentle- 
man's plate and then at the dish, " which is the pud- 
ding ?" 

Sir George Beaumont, when a young man, was 
one day in the Mount (a famous coffee-house in 
Mount Street, Grosvenor Square) with Harvey 
Aston. Various persons were seated at different 
tables. Among others present, there was an Irish- 
man who was very celebrated as a duellist, having 
killed at least half-a-dozen antagonists. Aston, 



32 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

talking to some of his acquaintance, swore that he 
would make the duellist stand barefooted before 
them. " You had better take care what you say," 
they replied ; " he has his eye upon you." — -" No mat- 
ter," rejoined Aston ; " I declare again that he shall 
stand barefooted before you, if you will make up 
among you a purse of fifty guineas." They did so. 
Aston then said in a loud voice, " I have been in Ire- 
land, and am well acquainted with the natives." The 
Irishman was all ear. Aston went on, " The Irish, 
being born in bogs, are every one of them web- 
footed ; I know it for a fact." — " Sir," roared the 
duellist, starting up from his table, "it is false!" 
Aston persisted in his assertion. " Sir," cried the 
other, " I was born in Ireland ; and I will prove to 
you that it is a falsehood." So saying, in great haste 
he pulled off his shoes and stockings, and displayed 
his bare feet. The joke ended in Aston's sharing 
the purse between the Irishman and himself, giving 
the former thirty guineas, and keeping twenty. Sir 
George assured me that this was a true story. * 

* A similar story is related of the Irishman from whom Mack- 
lin took the idea of Sir Callaghan O'Brallaghan (in Love a la 
Mode). Macklin professing his belief that he, like other Irishmen, 
must have a tail, " he instantly pulled off his coat and waistcoat, 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 83 

Aston was always kicking up disturbances. I 
remember being at Ranelagh with my father and 
mother, when we heard a great row, and were told 
that it was occasioned by Aston. 

If I mistake not, Aston fought two duels in 
India on two successive days, and fell in the second 
one.* 



That beautiful view of Conway Castle [in Mr. 

Rogers's dining-room] was painted by Sir George 

Beaumont, who presented it to me as a memorial of 

our having been originally introduced to each other 

in its ruins. — Sir George and I were always excellent 

friends. The morning after I arrived at Venice (on 

my first visit to Italy), I was looking out at the 

to convince him of his mistake, assuring him, 'that no Irishman, 
in that respect, was better than another man.' M Cooke's Memoirs 
of Macklin, p. 225.— Ed. 

* " 1798, Dec. 23. At Madras, in consequence of a wound he 
received in a duel with Major Allen, of which he languished about 
a week, Col. Harvey Aston. He had been engaged in a similar 
affair of honour, and on the same account, with Major Picton, only 
the day preceding that on which he met Major A., but which was 
fortunately terminated by each party firing in the air, and a proper 
explanation taking place as to the offence." Gentleman 's Magazine, 
vol. Ixix. P. 1. p. 527.— Aston had fought a duel in 1790 with Lieut. 
Pitzgerald, and was severely wounded. See Haydn's Diet, of Dates, 
sub Duelling. — Ed. 



34 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

window, when I saw a gentleman and a lady land 
at my lodging from a gondola : they were Sir George 
and Lady Beaumont. The meeting was delightful : 
— even now, I think of it with pleasure. 



In my youthful days Young's Night- Thoughts 
was a very favourite book, especially with ladies : 
I knew more than one lady who had a copy of it in 
which particular passages were marked for her by 
some popular preacher. 

Young's poem The Last Day contains, amidst 
much absurdity, several very fine lines : what an 
enormous thought is this !— 

" Those overwhelming armies, whose command 
Said to one empire ' Fall,' another ' Stand/ 
WJtose rear lay rapt in night, while breaking dawn 
Rous' d the broad front, and calVd the battle on."* 



At Brighton, during my youth, I became ac- 
quainted with a lawyer who had known Gray. He 



* Book ii. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 35 

said that Gray's pronunciation was very affected, e.g. 
" What naise (noise) is that ?" 

Henley (the translator of Beckford's Vathek) was 
one morning paying a visit to Gray, when a dog 
came into the room. (i Is that your dog ?" said 
Henley. " No/' replied Gray : " do you suppose 
that / would keep an animal by which I might pos- 
sibly lose my life ?" 

I was a mere lad when Mason's Gray was pub- 
lished. I read it in my young days with delight, 
and have done so ever since : the Letters have for 
me an inexpressible charm ; they are as witty as 
Walpole's, and have, what his want, true wisdom. 
I used to take a pocket edition of Gray's Poems 
with me every morning during my walks to town 
to my father's banking-house, where I was a clerk, 
and read them by the way. I can repeat them all. 

I do envy Gray these lines in his Ode on a dis- 
tant prospect of Eton College; 

" Still as they run, they look behind, 
They hear a voice in every wind, 
And snatch a fearful joy \" 

But what immediately follows is not good ; 



3fi EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

" Gay Hope is theirs, by Fancy fed, 

Less pleasing when possess d ;" 

we cannot be said to possess hope.* — How strange it 
is that, with all Gray's care in composition, the word 
" shade" should occur three times in the course of 
the eleven first lines of that ode ! — 

" Her Henry's holy shade" 

" Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among." 

" Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade /" 

Both Fox and Courtenay thought Gray's frag- 
ment, The Alliance of Education and Government, his 
finest poem : but that was because they preferred 
the heroic couplet to every other kind of verse. A 
celebrated passage in it,— 

" Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar 
Has Scythia breath'd the living cloud of war ; 
And, where the deluge burst with sweepy sway, 
Their arms, their kings, their gods wei»e roll'd away. 
As oft have issu'd, host impelling host, 
The blue-ey'd myriads from the Baltic coast : 

* His friend Wakefield had anticipated Mr. Kogers in the above 
remark: "Though the object of hope may truly be said to be less 
pleasing in possession than in the fancy; yet Hope in person cannot 
possibly be possessed," &c. Note ad 1. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 37 

The prostrate south to the destroyer yields 
Her boasted titles and her golden fields ; 
With grim delight the brood of winter view 
A brighter day and heavens of azure hue, 
Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose, 
And quaff the 'pendent vintage as it grows/'— 
is a good deal injured by the forced and unnatural 
expression, " pendent vintage. "* 

I once read Gray's Ode to Adversity to Words- 
worth ; and at the line, — - 

" And leave us leisure to be good," — 
Wordsworth exclaimed, " I am quite sure that is 
not original ; Gray could not have hit upon it." f 

The stanza which Gray threw out of his Elegy 
is better than some of the stanzas he has retained ; 

" There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, 

By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ; 
The redbreast loves to build and warble there, 
And little footsteps lightly print the ground." 

* Eor this expression Gray was indebted to Virgil ; 
" Non eadem arboribus pendet vindemia nostris 
Quam Methyninseo carpit de palmite Lesbos." 

Georg. ii. 89.— Ed. 
■f The Rev. J. Mitford, in his ed. of Gray, cites ad 1., 
" And know, I have not yet the leisure to be good.'''' 

Oldham, Ode, st. 5,— Works,\. 85, ed. 1722.— Ed. 



38 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

I believe few people know, what is certainly a 
fact; that the Macleane who was hanged for rob- 
bery, and who is mentioned in Gray's Long Story, — 
" He stood as mute as poor Macleane" — 

was brother to Maclaine, the translator of Mosheim. 
Gray somewhere says that monosyllables should 
be avoided in poetry : but there are many lines con- 
sisting only of monosyllables, which could not pos- 
sibly be improved. For instance, in Shakespeare's 
Romeo and Juliet, — 

" Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel ;"• 

and in Pope's Eloisa to Abelard, — 

" Pant on thy lip, and to thy heart be prest ; 
Give all thou canst, and let me dream the rest." 



Matthias showed me the papers belonging to 
Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, which he had bor- 
rowed for his edition of Gray; and among them 
were several very indecent poems by Gray's friend 
West, in whose day it was the fashion for young 
men to write in that style. If West had lived, he 

* Act iii. sc. 3.— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 39 

would have been no mean poet: he has left some 
lines which are certainly among the happiest imita- 
tions of Pope ; 

" How weak is man to reason's judging eye ! 
Born in this moment, in the next we die ; 
Part mortal clay, and part ethereal fire, 
Too proud to creep, too humble to aspire."* 



When I was at Nuneham, I read Mason's manu- 
script letters to Lord Harcourt, which contain no- 
thing to render them worth printing. They evince 
the excessive deference which Mason showed to 
Gray, — " Mr. Gray's opinion" being frequently 
quoted. There is in them a very gross passage 
about Lady M. W. Montagu. 

Mason's poetry is, on the whole, stiff and tiresome. 
His best line is in the Elegy on Lady Coventry ; 

" Yes, Coventry is dead. Attend the strain, 

Daughters of Albion ! ye that, light as air, 
So oft have tripp'd in her fantastic train, 

With hearts as gay, and faces half as fair T 



See Mason's Gray, p. 20, ed. 4 to. — Ed. 



40 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Topham Beauclerk (Johnson's friend) was a 
strangely absent person. One day he, had a party 
coming to dinner; and, just before their arrival, he 
went up stairs to change his dress. He forgot all 
about them ; thought that it was bed-time, pulled 
off his clothes, and got into bed. A servant, who 
presently entered the room to tell him that his 
guests were waiting for him, found him fast asleep. 



I remember taking Beattie's Minstrel down from 
my father's shelves, on a fine summer evening, and 
reading it, for the first time, with such delight ! It 
still charms me (I mean the First Book ; the Second 
Book is very inferior). 



During my youth umbrellas were far from com- 
mon. At that time every gentleman's family had 
one umbrella, — a huge thing, made of coarse cotton, 
— which used to be taken out with the carriage, and 
which, if there was rain, the footman held over the 
ladies' heads, as they entered, or alighted from, the 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 41 

My first visit to France was in company with 
Boddington, just before the Revolution began. 
When we arrived at Calais, we saw both ladies and 
gentlemen walking on the pier with small fox-muffs. 
While we were dining there, a poor monk came into 
the room and asked us for charity; and B. annoyed 
me much by saying to him, " II faut travailler."* 
The monk bowed meekly, and withdrew. Nothing 
would satisfy B. but that we should ride on horse- 
back the first stage from Calais ; and accordingly, to 
the great amusement of the inn-keeper and chamber- 
maid, we were furnished with immense jack-boots 
and hoisted upon our steeds. When we reached 
Paris, Lafayette gave us a general invitation to dine 
with him every day. At his table we once dined 
with about a dozen persons (among them the Duke 
de la Rochefoucauld, Condorcet, &c.),most of whom 
afterwards came to an untimely end. 

At a dinner-party in Paris, given by a French 

* "But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve 
of his [the Monk's] tunic, in return for his appeal, — we distinguish, 
my good father, betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their 
own labour, and those who eat the bread of other people's, and have 
no other plan in life but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, 
for the love of God." Sterne's Sentimental Journey,— The Monk.— 
Ed. 



42 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

nobleman, I saw a black bottle of English porter 
set on the table as a great rarity, and drunk out of 
small glasses. 



Boddington had a wretchedly bad memory ; and, 
in order to improve it, he attended Feinaigle's lec- 
tures on the Art of Memory. Soon after, some- 
body asked Boddington the name of the lecturer ; 
and, for his life, he could not recollect it. — When 
I was asked if I had attended the said lectures on 
the Art of Memory, I replied, " No : I wished to 
learn the Art of Forgetting." 



One morning, when I was a lad, Wilkes came 
into our banking-house to solicit my father's vote. 
My father happened to be out, and I, as his re- 
presentative, spoke to Wilkes. At parting, Wilkes 
shook hands with me ; and I felt proud of it for a 
week after. 

He was quite as ugly, and squinted as much, as 
his portraits make him ; but he was very gentlemanly 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 43 

in appearance and manners. I think I see him at 
this moment, walking through the crowded streets of 
the City, as Chamberlain, on his way to Guildhall, in 
a scarlet coat, military boots, and a bag-wig,— the 
hackney-coachmen in vain calling out to him, " A 
coach, your honour ?" 



Words are so twisted and tortured by some 
writers of the present day, that I am really sorry for 
them,— I mean, for the words. It is a favourite 
fancy of mine that perhaps in the next world the use 
of words may be dispensed with, — that our thoughts 
may stream into each others' minds without any 
verbal communication. 



When a young man, I went to Edinburgh, car- 
rying letters of introduction (from Dr. Kippis, Dr. 
Price, &c.) to Adam Smith, Robertson, and others. 
When I .first saw Smith, he was at breakfast, eating 
strawberries; and he descanted on the superior flavour 
of those grown in Scotland.* I found him very 

* Every Englishman who has tasted the strawberries of Scot- 
land will allow that Smith, was right. — Ed. 



44 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

kind and communicative. He was (what Robertson 
was not) a man who had seen a great deal of the 
world. Once, in the course of conversation, I hap- 
pened to remark of some writer, that " he was rather 
superficial, — a Voltaire." — " Sir," cried Smith, strik- 
ing the table with his hand, " there has been but one 
Voltaire!" 

Robertson, too, was very kind to me. He, one 
morning, spread out the map of Scotland on the 
floor, and got upon his knees, to describe the route 
I ought to follow in making a tour on horseback 
through the Highlands. 

At Edinburgh I became acquainted with Henry 
Mackenzie, who asked me to correspond with him ; 
which I (then young, romantic, and an admirer of 
his Julia de Rouhigne) willingly agreed to. We ac- 
cordingly wrote to each other occasionally during 
several years ; but his letters, to my surprise and 
disappointment, were of the most commonplace de- 
scription. Yet his published writings display no 
ordinary talent ; and, like those of Beattie, they are 
remarkable for a pure English idiom, — which cannot 
be said of Hume's writings, beautiful as they are. 

The most memorable day perhaps which I ever 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL E.OGEKS. 45 

passed was at- Edinburgh, — a Sunday; when, after 
breakfasting with Robertson, I heard him preach in 
the forenoon, and Blair in the afternoon, then took 
coffee with the Piozzis, and supped with Adam 
Smith. Robertson's sermon was excellent both for 
matter and manner of delivery. Blair's was good, 
but less impressive ; and his broad Scotch accent 
offended my ears greatly. 

My acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi began 
at Edinburgh, being brought about by the landlord 
of the hotel where they and I were staying. He 
thought that I should be gratified by " hearing Mr. 
Piozzi's piano-forte :" and they called upon me, on 
learning from the landlord who I was, and that Adam 
Smith, Robertson, and Mackenzie had left cards 
for me. 

I was afterwards very intimate with the Piozzis, 
and visited them often at Streatham. The world 
was most unjust in blaming Mrs. Thrale for marrying 
Piozzi : he was a very handsome, gentlemanly, and 
amiable person, and made her a very good husband. 
In the evening he used to play to us most beautifully 
on the piano. Her daughters never would see her 
after that marriage ; and (poor woman) when she was 



46 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

at a very great age, I have heard her say that " she 
would go down upon her knees to them, if they 
would only be reconciled to her." 



I never saw Burns : I was within thirty miles of 
Dumfries when he was living there ; and yet I did 
not go to visit him ; which I have regretted ever 
since. — I think his Cottar's Saturday -Night the finest 
pastoral in any language. 

How incapable of estimating Burns's genius were 
the worthy folks of Edinburgh ! Henry Mackenzie 
(who ought to have known better) advised him to 
take for his model in song-writing — Mrs. John 
Hunter ! * 



Sir John Henry Moore, who died in his twenty- 
fourth year, possessed considerable talent. His 
IS Amour timide is very pretty. 



* As a writer of songs, Mrs. Hunter is, no doubt, immeasurably 
inferior to Burns : but her Cherokee Death-Song, and several other 
small pieces which she wrote for music, are far from contemptible : 
see her Poems. 1802. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 47 

[" I? Amour timide. 
If in that breast, so good, so pure, 

Compassion ever lov'd to dwell, 
Pity the sorrows I endure ; 

The cause— I must not, dare not tell. 

The grief that on my quiet preys—* 

That rends my heart — that checks my tongue,- — 
I fear will last me all my days, 

But feel it will not last me long."] 



Marivaux'sf Marianne is a particular favourite 
with me : I have read it six times through ; and I 
have shed tears over it, after I was seventy, — not 
so much at its pathos as at its generous senti- 
ments. 

* Mr. Rogers, I believe, was not aware that the second stanza 
is taken from Montreuil ; 

" Ne me demandez plus, Sylvie ? 
Quel est le mal que je ressens. 
C'est un mal que j'auray tout le temps de ma vie, 
Mais je ne l'auray pas long- temps." 

(Euvr.es, p. 602, ed. 1666.— Ed. 
f At the Strawberry-Hill sale, Mr. Rogers's admiration of this 
writer induced him to purchase his picture, — a miniature, by Lio- 
tard, which had been painted for Horace Walpole. — Ed. 



48 BECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

The Abbe Delille (whom I knew well and liked 
much) was of opinion that Marivaux's Paysan Par- 
venu was a greater literary effort than Marianne. 

I once said to Delille, " Don't you think that 
Voltaire's vers de society are the first of their kind ?" 
He replied, " Assuredly; the very first, and — the 
last." 



Dr. Parr had a great deal of sensibility. When I 
read to him, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the account of 
O'Coigly's* death, the tears rolled dow r n his cheeks. 

One day, Mackintosh having vexed him by call- 
ing O'Coigly "a rascal," Parr immediately rejoined, 
" Yes, Jamie, he was a bad man, but he might have 
been worse ; he was an Irishman, but he might have 
been a Scotchman; he was a priest, but he might 
have been a lawyer ; he was a republican, but he 
might have been an apostate." 

* James O'Coigly (alias James Quigley, alias James John 
Fivey) was tried for high treason at Maidstone, and hanged on 
Penningdon Heath, 7th June 1798. When he had hung about 
ten minutes, he was beheaded; and the head and body were imme- 
diately buried under the gallows (the rest of his sentence, — that, 
" while he was yet alive, his bowels should be taken out and burnt 
before his face, 5 ' &c, having been remitted). — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 49 

After their quarrel (about Gerald), Parr often 
spoke with much bitterness of Mackintosh : among 
other severe things, he said that " Mackintosh came 
up from Scotland with a metaphysical head, a cold 
heart, and open hands." At last they were recon- 
ciled, having met,' for that purpose, in my house : 
but their old familiarity was never fully re-esta- 
blished. 

Parr was frequently very tiresome in conversa- 
tion, talking like a schoolmaster. 

He had a horror of the east wind; and Tom 
Sheridan once kept him prisoner in the house for a 
fortnight by fixing the weathercock in that direc- 
tion. 



"We have not a few charming prose-writers in 
what may be called the middle style, — Addison, 
Middleton, Jortin, &c. ; but in the highest prose- 
style w T e have none to be compared with Bossuet, 
Pascal, or Buffon.— We have far better tragic writers 
than Corneille or Racine ; but we have no one to be 
compared with Moliere, — no one like him. 



50 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Swift's verses on his own death have an exquisite 
facility : but we are not to suppose that he wrote 
them off-hand; their ease is the result of very careful 
composition. 



Helen Maria Williams was a very fascinating 
person ; but not handsome. I knew her intimately 
in her youth, when she resided in London with her 
mother and sisters. They used to give very agree- 
able evening-parties, at which I have met many of 
the Scotch literati, Lord Monboddo, &c. 

Late in life, Helen translated into English, and 
very beautiful English too, Humboldt's long work, 
Personal Narrative of Travels, &c. ; and, I believe, 
nearly the whole impression still lies in Longman's 
warehouse. 

When she was in Paris, during the Revolution, 
she has seen men and women, who were waiting for 
admission at the door of the theatre, suddenly leave 
their station on the passing of a set of wretches 
going to be guillotined, and then, after having ascer- 
tained that none of their relations or friends were 
among them, very unconcernedly return to the door 
of the theatre.— I have frequently dined with her at 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 51 

Paris, when Kosciusko and other celebrated persons 
ay ere of the party. 



When Lord Erskine heard that somebody had 
died worth two hundred thousand pounds, he ob- 
served, " Well, that's a very pretty sum to begin 
the next world w r ith." 

" A friend of mine," said Erskine, " was suffering 
from a continual wakefulness ; and various methods 
were tried to send him to sleep, but in vain. At last 
his physicians resorted to an experiment which suc- 
ceeded perfectly : they dressed him in a watchman's 
coat, put a lantern into his hand, placed him in a 
sentry-box, and — he was asleep in ten minutes." 

To all letters soliciting his " subscription" to any 
thing, Erskine had a regular form of reply, viz. 
" Sir, I feel much honoured by your application to 
me, and I beg to subscribe" — here the reader had to 
turn over the leaf— " myself your very ob 1 servant," 
&c. 

I wish I could recollect all the anecdotes of his 
early life which Erskine used to relate with such 
spirit and dramatic effect. He had been in the navy; 



52 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

and he said that he once managed to run a vessel 
between two rocks, where it seemed almost impos- 
sible that she could have been driven. He had also 
been in the army ; and on one occasion saved the 
life of a soldier who was condemned to death, by 
making an earnest appeal in his behalf to the general 
in command and his wife : Erskine having got the 
pardon, rode off with it at full speed to the place of 
execution, where he arrived just as the soldier was 
kneeling, and the muskets were levelled for the 
fatal shot. . 

Erskine used to say that when the hour came 
that all secrets should be revealed, we should know 
the reason why — shoes are always made too tight. 

When he had a house at Hampstead, he enter- 
tained the very best company. I have dined there 
with the Prince of Wales, — the only time I ever had 
any conversation with his royal highness. On that 
occasion the Prince was very agreeable and familiar. 
Among other anecdotes which he told us of Lord 
Thurlow, I remember these two. The first was : 
Thurlow once said to the Prince, " Sir, your father 
will continue to be a popular king as long as he 
continues to go to church every Sunday, and to be 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 53 

faithful to that ugly woman, your mother ; but you, 
sir, will never be popular." The other was this : 
While his servants were carrying Thurlow up stairs to 
his bed-room, just before his death, they happened to 
let his legs strike against the banisters, upon which 
he uttered the last words he ever spoke, — a frightful 
imprecation on " all their souls." 

Erskine said that the Prince of Wales was quite 
" a cosmogony man" (alluding to The Vicar of Wake- 
field), for he had only two classical quotations, — one 
from Homer and one from Virgil, — which he never 
failed to sport when there was any opportunity of 
introducing them.* 

Latterly Erskine was very poor ; and no wonder, 
for he always contrived to sell out of the funds when 
they were very low, and to buy in when they were 
very high. " By heaven," he would say, " I am 
a perfect kite, all paper; the boys might fly me." 
Yet, poor as he was, he still kept the best society : 
I have met him at the Duke of York's, &c. &c. 



* Mr. Luttrell, who was present when Mr. Rogers told this 
anecdote, added, — " Yes, and the quotation from Yirgil was always 
given with a ridiculous error, ' Non illi imperium pelago, ssevumque 
triaentem,'" &c. JEn. i. 138.— Ed. 



54 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

I asked Erskine if he really was the author of 
two little poems attributed to him, — The Geranium 
and The Birth of the Rose. He replied that The 
Geranium was written by him ; that the other was 
not his. 

Here's an epigram by Erskine which- is far from 
bad (I know not if it has ever been printed) ; 

" The French have taste in all they do, 
Which we are quite without ; 
For Nature, that to them gave gout, 
To us gave only gout." 



Thomas Grenville* told me this curious fact. 
When he was a young man, he one day dined with 
Lord Spencer at Wimbledon. Among the company 
was George Pitt (afterwards Lord Rivers), who de- 
clared that he could tame the most furious animal 
by looking at it steadily. Lord Spencer said, " Well, 
there is a mastiff in the court-yard here, which is 



* The Eight Hon. T. G.— Sometimes, towards the close of 
his life, from lapse of memory, Mr. Rogers, in relating this anec- 
dote, would state that he himself had been of the party at Lord 
Spencer's. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGERS. 55 

the terror of the neighbourhood : will you try your 
powers on him ?" Pitt agreed to do so ; and the 
company descended into the court-yard. A servant 
held the mastiff by a chain. Pitt knelt down at 
a short distance from the animal, and stared him 
sternly in the face, They all shuddered. At a 
signal given, the mastiff was let loose, and rushed 
furiously towards Pitt, — then suddenly checked his 
pace, seemed confounded, and, leaping over Pitt's 
head, ran away, and was not seen for many hours 
after. 

During one of my visits to Italy, while I was 
walking, a little before my carriage, on the road, 
not far from Vicenza, I perceived two huge dogs, 
nearly as tall as myself, bounding towards me (from 
out a gate-way, though there was no house in sight). 
I recollected what Pitt had done ; and trembling 
from head to foot, I yet had resolution enough to 
stand quite still and eye them with a fixed look. 
They gradually relaxed their speed from a gallop 
to a trot, came up to me, stopped for a moment, 
and then went back again. 



56 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Dunning (afterwards Lord Ashburton) was " stat- 
ing the law" to a jury at Guildhall, when Lord 
Mansfield interrupted him by saying, " If that be 
law, I'll go home and burn my books." — " My 
Lord," replied Dunning, "you had better go home 
and read them." 

Dunning was remarkably ugly. One night, while 
he was playing whist, at Nando's, with Home Tooke 
and two others, Lord Thurlow called at the door, 
and desired the waiter to give a note to Dunning 
(with whom, though their politics were so different, 
he was very intimate). The waiter did not know- 
Dunning by sight. " Take the note up stairs," said 
Thurlow, " and deliver it to the ugliest man at the 
card-table — to him who most resembles the knave 
of spades." The note immediately reached its desti- 
nation. — Home Tooke used often to tell this anec- 
dote. 



When I was young, we had (what we have not 
now) several country -gentlemen of considerable 
literary celebrity,- — for instance, Hayley, Sargent 
(author of The Mine), and Webb. There are some 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 57 

good remarks on painting and on poetry scattered 
through Webb's different pieces. 

If Hayley was formerly over-rated, he is now 
undervalued. He was a most accomplished person, 
as indeed is evident from the notes to his various 
poems, — notes which Lord Holland admires greatly.* 
His translation of the First Canto of the Inferno f is 
on the whole good ; but he has omitted some of the 
striking circumstances in the original. 

When I first came forward as a poet, I was 
highly gratified by the praise which Hayley bestowed 
on my writings, and which was communicated to me 
by Cadell the publisher. 

I once travelled with Lord Lansdowne (when 
Lord Henry Petty) to Bognor, in the neighbour- 
hood of which Hayley was then living (not at 
Eartham, but in a village % near it). I went to visit 
him. The door was opened by a little girl ; and 



* "Lord Holland, the best-informed and most elegant of our 
writers on the subject of the Spanish theatre, declared that he had 
been induced to learn that language by what Hayley had written 
concerning the poet Ercilla." Cary's Life of Hayley, — Lives of 
English Poets, fyc. p. 347.— Ed. 

f In the Notes to his Essay on Poetry. — Ed. 

J Eelpham. — Ed. 



58 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

when I said, " Is Mr. Hayley at home ?" he himself 
exclaimed, " Yes, he is" — (he recognised my voice, 
though we had only met once before, — at Flax- 
man's) ; and out he came, adding, " I am delighted 
to see you : if I had not known your voice, I should 
not have let you in, for I am very "busy." I took 
coffee with him, and he talked most agreeably. I 
said that Lord Henry Petty was my travelling com- 
panion, and that he was very anxious to be intro- 
duced to him : but Hayley, who did not care a straw 
for rank, . could not be prevailed upon to see his 
lordship. 



In those days, indeed, praise was sweet to me, 
even when it came from those who were far inferior 
to Hayley : what pleasure I felt on being told that 
Este had said of me, " A child of Goldsmith, sir !" 

Parson Este, in conjunction with Captain Top- 
ham, edited the newspaper called The World. He 
was reader at Whitehall ; and he read the service so 
admirably, that Mrs. Siddons used frequently to go 
to hear him. My sister and I once took him with 
us on a little tour ; and when we were at Ross, he 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 59 

read to us Pope's lines about " the man of Ross," — 
I cannot describe how beautifully. 

Este published a strange book, My own Life, and 
A Journey through Flanders, &c. He used to throw 
himself into attitudes in the street. At last he went 
mad, and died insane, 



I wish somebody would collect all the Epigrams 
written by Dr. Mansel (Master of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, and Bishop of Bristol) : they are remark- 
ably neat and clever. 



When titled ladies become authoresses or com- 
posers, their friends suffer for it. Lady — — asked 
me to buy her book ; and I replied that I would do 
so when I was rich enough. I went to a concert at 

Lady 's, during which several pieces composed 

by her daughter were performed ; and early next 
morning, a music-seller arrived at my house, bringing 
with him the daughter's compositions (and a bill re- 
ceipted), price sixteen shillings. 



60 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Surely, in delicate touches of pathos Homer ex- 
cels all poets. For instance, how beautiful is Andro- 
mache's saying, after Hector's death, that Astyanax 
had lost his play fellow ; and Helen's declaration con- 
cerning the same hero, that he had never reproached 
her! 

[" Thee lost, he loses all, of father, both, 
And equal playmate in one day depriv'd." 

Cowper's Iliad, b. xxii. 
" Yet never heard I once hard speech from thee 
Or taunt morose ; but if it ever chanc'd 
That male or female of thy father's house 
Blam'd me, and even if herself the queen 
(For in the king, whate'er befell, I found 
Always a father), thou hast interpos'd 
Thy gentle temper and thy gentle speech 
To soothe them." Id. b. xxiv.] 

John Hunter believed that when there was only 
one daughter and several sons in a family, the 
daughter was always of a masculine disposition ; and 
that when a family consisted of several daughters and 
only one son, the son was always effeminate. Payne 
Knight used to say that Homer seems to have enter- 
tained the same idea ; for in the Iliad we find that 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGERS. 61 

Dolon, who proves to be such a coward, was an only 
son and had several sisters. 

[" There was one Dolon in the camp of Troy, 
Son of Eumedes, herald of the gods, 
Who with five daughters had no son beside." 
Cowper's Iliad, b. x.] 
Some traveller relates, that an Indian being asleep 
in his canoe, which was fastened to the shore, a little 
above the Falls of Niagara, an English soldier wan- 
tonly cut the fastenings, and the canoe drifted into 
the current; — that the Indian, after vainly trying 
the use of his paddles, and perceiving that he was 
just approaching the Falls, covered his head with his 
mat, lay down in the canoe, and calmly resigned 
himself to his fate. So Homer, following nature, 
tells us in the Odyssey that Ulysses, when his com- 
panions had opened the bag which contained the 
winds, covered his head with his mantle, and lay 
down in the vessel. 

[" They loos'd the bag ; forth issud all the winds, 
And, rapt by tempests back, with fruitless tears 
They mourn'd their native country lost again. 
Just then awaking, in my troubled mind 
I doubted, whether from the vessel's side 



62 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

To plunge and perish, or with patient mind 
To suffer and to live. The sufferer's part 
At length I chose, and resolute surviv'd. 
But, with my mantle wrapp'd around my brows, 
I laid me down, till, hurried by the blast, 
We, groaning, reach' d again th' iEolian isle." 

Cowper's Odyssey, b. x.] 



It is inexcusable in any one to write illegibly. 
When I was a schoolboy, I used to get hold of our 
writing-master's copies and trace them by holding 
them against the window : hence the plain hand I 
now write. — When the great Lord Clive was in 
India, his sisters sent him some handsome presents 
from England ; and he informed them by letter that 
he had returned them an " elephant" (at least so they 
read the word) ; an announcement which threw them 
into the utmost perplexity, — for what could they 
possibly do with the animal ? The true word was 
" equivalent."* 



* Those who have seen autograph letters of Dr. Parr will not 
easily believe that any handwriting could be more puzzling. A 
Eellow of Magdalen College (who himself told me the circumstance) 
received one day a note from Parr, to say that he was on his way to 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 63 

Romney the painter used to say that the Grecian 
architecture was the invention of glorious men, but 
the Gothic that of gods. 



Thomas Grenville* told me that he was present 
in the House when Lord North, suddenly rising from 
his seat and going out, carried off on the hilt of his 
sword the wig of Welbore Ellis, who was stooping to 
take up some papers.— -I have myself often seen Lord 
North in the House. While sitting there, he would 
frequently hold a handkerchief to his face ; and once, 
after a long debate, when somebody said to him, 
" My lord, I fear you have been asleep," he replied, 
« I wish I had." 



Sheridan, Tickell, and the rest of their set de- 
lighted in all sorts of practical jokes, For instance, 
while they were staying with Mr.f and Mrs. Crewe 

Oxford, would sup with, him that night, and would be glad to have 
two eggs (so my informant read the words) got ready for his supper. 
Accordingly, on his arrival, the eggs were served up in all due form 
to the hungry Doctor, who no sooner saw them than he flew into 
a violent passion. Instead of eggs he had written lobsters. — Ed. 

* The Right Honourable T. G.— Ed. 

f Raised to the peerage (as Lord Crewe) in 1806. — Ed. 



04 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

(at Crewe Hall), Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs. Crewe 
would be driving out in the carriage, Sheridan and 
Tickell* riding on before them : suddenly, the ladies 
would see Sheridan stretched upon the ground, ap- 
parently in the agonies of death, and Tickell stand- 
ing over him in a theatrical attitude of despair. 
— Again, Mr. Crewe expressed a great desire to 
meet Richardson (author of The Fugitive), of 
whom he had heard Sheridan and Tickell talk with 
much admiration. " I have invited him here," said 
Sheridan, " and he will positively be with us to- 
morrow." Next day, accordingly, Richardson made 
his appearance, and horrified the Crewes by the vul- 
garity and oddness of his manners and language. 
The fact was, Sheridan had got one of Mr. Crewe's 
tenants to personate Richardson for the occasion. — I 
don't know whether Richardson's Fugitive is a good 
comedy or not:f but I know that Mrs. Jordan 

* Is it necessary to mention that Tickell (author of The Wreath 
of Fashion, a poem, of Anticipation, a prose pamphlet, &c. &c.) was 
one of Sheridan's most intimate friends ; and that he and Sheridan 
had married sisters ? — Ed. 

f It is far from a contemptible one : and it must have been 
extremely well acted ; for, besides the two performers whom Mr. 
Kogers mentions, Dodd, Parsons, Palmer, King, Miss Farren, and 
Miss Pope, had parts in it. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 65 

played very sweetly in it, and that Wewitzer per- 
formed a Frenchman most amusingly. 

I'll tell you another of Sheridan's youthful pranks. 
One night, as he, Fitzpatrick, and Lord John Town- 
shend, came out of Drury-lane Theatre, they ob- 
served, among the vehicles in waiting, a very hand- 
some phaeton with a groom in it. Sheridan asked 
the groom to let him get into the phaeton for five 
minutes, just to try it. The man consented, and 
stepped down. Sheridan got in, made Fitzpatrick 
and Townshend get in also, and then drove off at 
full speed for Yauxhall, whither they were pursued 
by the groom and a great crowd, shouting and haloo- 
ing after them. At Vauxhall the groom recovered 
the phaeton, and was pacified by the present of a few 
shillings. But it would seem that this exploit had 
been attended with some unpleasant consequences to 
Sheridan, for he could not bear any allusion to it : 
he would say, " Pray, do not mention such an ab- 
surd frolic." 

I was present on the second day of Hastings's trial 
in Westminster Hall ; when Sheridan was listened to 
with such attention that you might have heard a pin 
drop. — During one of those days Sheridan, having ob- 

F 



66 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

served Gibbon among the audience, took occasion to 
mention " the luminous author of The Decline and 
Fall"* After he had finished, one of his friends 
reproached him with flattering Gibbon. " Why, 
what did I say of him ?" asked Sheridan. — " You 
called him the luminous author," &c— " Luminous ! 
oh, I meant— aluminous." 

Sheridan once said to me, " When posterity read 
the speeches of Burke, they will hardly be able to 
believe that, during his life-time, he was not consi- 
dered as a first-rate speaker, not even as a second- 
rate one." 

When the Duke of York was obliged to retreat 
before the French,^ Sheridan gave as a toast, " The 
Duke of York and his brave followers." 



* But, as reported in The Morning Chronicle, June 14, 1788, the 
expression used by Sheridan was " the correct periods of Tacitus 
or the luminous page of Gibbon." — " Before my departure from Eng- 
land, I was present at the august spectacle of Mr. Hastings's trial in 
Westminster Hall. It is not my province to absolve or condemn 
the Governor of India; but Mr. Sheridan's eloquence demanded my 
applause; nor could I hear without emotion the personal compli- 
ment which he paid me in the presence of the British nation." 
Gibbon's Memoirs, &c. p. 172, ed. 4to. — Ed. 

f On the campaigns of his Royal Highness, see Memoir of the 
Duke of York in The Gentleman's Magazine for January 1827, 
pp. 71, 2, 3.— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 67 

Sheridan was dining one day at my house when I 
produced the versified translation of Aristasnetus,* 
saying, " You are guilty of this." He made no 
reply, but took it, and put it, with a smile, into his 
pocket (from which, of course, I drew it out). What 
an odd fancy, to turn Aristaenetus into verse ! Hal- 
hed, who assisted Sheridan in that translation, pub- 
lished imitations of Martial, and some of them are 
very good. 

I have seen Sheridan in company with the fa- 
mous Pamela. f She was lovely — quite radiant with 
beauty ; and Sheridan either was, or pretended to 
be, violently in love with her. On one occasion I 
remember that he kept labouring the whole evening 
at a copy of verses in French, which he intended to 
present to her, every now and then writing down a 

* Printed, without the translator's name, in 1771. — Ed. 

f Madame de Genlis's adopted daughter, who was married at 
Tournay, in 1792, to Lord Edward Eitzgerald. According to 
Madame de Genlis, in her Memoirs, two days before she and 
Pamela left England, Sheridan declared himself, in her presence, 
the lover of Pamela, who accepted his hand with pleasure ; and it 
was settled that they should be married — " on our return from 
Erance, which was expected to take place in a fortnight." See 
Memoirs of Sheridan, vol. ii. 196, ed. 1827, by Moore, who suspects, 
not without good reason, that in this affair Sheridan was only 
amusing himself. — Ed. 



68 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

word or two on a slip of paper with a pencil. The 
best of it was, that he understood French very im- 
perfectly. 

I prefer Sheridan's Rivals to his School for Scan- 
dal : exquisite humour pleases me more than the 
finest wit. 

Sheridan was a great artist : what could be more 
happy in expression than the last of these lines ? you 
may see it illustrated in the Park every Sunday : — 

" Hors'd in Cheapside, scarce yet the gayer spark 
Achieves the Sunday triumph of the Park ; 
Scarce yet you see him, dreading to be late, 
Scour the New Eoad and dash through Grosvenor Gate; 
Anxious — yet timorous too — his steed to show. 
The hack Bucephalus of Eotten Eow. 
Careless he seems, yet, vigilantly sly, 
Woos the stray glance of ladies passing by, 
While his off-heel, insidiously aside, 
Provokes the caper which he seems to chide. r 



, »* 



I regret that Moore should have printed those 
memoranda which prove how painfully Sheridan ela- 

* Prologue to Pizarro (but originally written for, and spoken 
before, Lady Craven's Miniature Picture). — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 69 

borated his compositions ; for, though the judicious 
few will feel that Sheridan was quite right in doing 
so, the public generally will think the less of him for 
it. — No wonder that those memoranda were extant : 
Sheridan was in the habit of putting by, not only all 
papers written by himself, but all others that came 
into his hands. Ogle told me that, after his death, 
he found in his desk sundry unopened letters written 
by his (Ogle's) mother, who had sent them to Sheri- 
dan to be franked. 

Sheridan did not display his admirable powers in 
company till he had been warmed by wine. During 
the earlier part of dinner he was generally heavy and 
silent ; and I have heard him, when invited to drink 
a glass of wine, reply, iC No, thank you ; I'll take — a 
little small beer." After dinner, when he had had a 
tolerable quantity of wine, he was brilliant indeed. 
But when he went on swallowing too much, he be- 
came downright stupid : and I once, after a dinner- 
party at the house of Edwards the bookseller in Pall 
Mall, walked with him to Brookes's, when he had 
absolutely lost the use of speech. 

Sheridan, Sir Walter (then Mr.) Scott, and 
Moore were one day dining with me, and Sheridan 



70 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

was talking in his very best style, when, to my great 
vexation, Moore (who has that sort, of restlessness 
which never allows him to be happy where he is) 
suddenly interrupted Sheridan by exclaiming, " Isn't 
it time to go to Lydia White's ?"* 

During his last illness, the medical attendants 
apprehending that they would be obliged to perform 
an operation on him, asked him " if he had ever 
undergone one." — " Never," replied Sheridan, " ex- 
cept when sitting for my picture, or having my hair 
cut." 

Sheridan had very fine eyes, and he was not a 
little vain of them. He said to me on his death- 
bed, " Tell Lady Besborough that my eyes will look 
up to the coffin-lid as brightly as ever." 

* Miss Lydia White (long since dead) was a lady who de- 
lighted in giving parties to as many celebrated people as she could 
collect. The following instance of her readiness in reply was com- 
municated to me by my friend the Eev. W. Harness. " At one of 
Lydia White's small and most agreeable dinners in Park Street, the 
company (most of them, except the hostess, being Whigs) were dis- 
cussing in rather a querulous strain the desperate prospects of their 
party. ' Yes,' said Sydney Smith, ' we are in a most deplorable 
condition : we must do something to help ourselves ; I think we 
had better sacrifice a Tory virgin.' This was pointedly addressed 
to Lydia White, who, at once catching and applying the allusion to 
Iphigenia, answered, ' I believe there is nothing the Whigs would 
not do to raise the wind.' " — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEBS. 71 

Soon after his death, Lord Holland wrote a short 
biographical sketch of him, in which it is stated that 
he showed during the closing scene a deep sense of 
devotion. But, on my asking the Bishop of London, 
who had been called in to read prayers to him, what 
were the religious feelings of Sheridan in his last 
moments, the answer was> " I had no means of know- 
ing ; for, when I read the prayers, he was totally 
insensible ; Mrs. Sheridan raising him up, and join- 
ing his hands together." * 

In his dealings with the world, Sheridan cer- 
tainly carried the privileges of genius as far as they 
were ever carried by man. 



We used all to read and like Tickell's Wreath of 

* Let us hear, however, what Smyth says on this point in his 
(privately-printed) Memoir of Mr. Sheridan. "But the next day 
he [Sheridan] was not better, and I never saw him. I talked about 
him, while I sat with Mrs. Sheridan; as much, at least, as I thought 
she chose. I durst not ask much. She told me she had sent for 
her friend Dr. Howley, then Bishop of London, who had instantly 
come up from Oxfordshire to pray by him. ' And Mr. Sheridan,' I 
ventured to say, 'what of him?' '1 never saw,' she replied, ' such 
awe as there was painted in his countenance — I shall never forget 
it.' " p. 68.— Ed. 



72 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Fashion, and his other pieces, as they came out. I 
can still repeat several of the songs in his opera, The 
Carnival of Venice ,* though they are only so-so : here 
is part of one of them ; 

Cl Soon as the busy day is o'er, 

And evening comes with pleasant shade, 
We gondoliers, from shore to shore, 
Merrily ply our jovial trade ; 

And while the moon shines on the stream, 
And as soft music breathes around, 

The. feathering oar returns the gleam, 
And dips in concert to the sound, 

Down by some convent's mouldering walls 
Oft we bear th' enamour'd youth ; 

Softly the watchful fair he calls, 

Who whispers vows of love and truth," &c. 



It is quite true, as stated in several accounts of 
him, that Fox, when a very young man, was a pro- 
digious dandy, — wearing a little odd French hat, 
shoes with red heels, &c. He and Lord Carlisle 

* No portion of this opera, except the songs, was ever printed. 
— See note, p. 64. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 73 

once travelled from Paris to Lyons for the express 
purpose of buying waistcoats ; and during the whole 
journey they talked about nothing else. 

Fox (in his earlier days, I mean), Sheridan, Fitz- 
patrick, &c, led such a life ! Lord Tankerville as- 
sured me that he has played cards with Fitzpatrick 
at Brookes's from ten o'clock at night till near six 
o'clock the next afternoon, a waiter standing by to 
tell them " whose deal it was," they being too sleepy 
to know. 

After losing large sums at hazard, Fox would go 
hoine, — not to destroy himself, as his friends some- 
times feared, but — to sit down quietly, and read 
Greek. 

He once won about eight thousand pounds ; and 
one of his bond-creditors, who soon heard of his 
good luck, presented himself, and asked for pay- 
ment. " Impossible, sir," replied Fox ; " I must 
first discharge my debts of honour." The bond- 
creditor remonstrated. " Well, sir, give me your 
bond." It was delivered to Fox, who tore it in 
pieces and threw them into the fire. " Now r , sir," 
said Fox, " my debt to you is a debt of honour;" 
and immediately paid him. 



74 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

When I became acquainted with Fox, he had 
given up that kind of life entirely, and resided in 
the most perfect sobriety and regularity at St. Anne's 
Hill. There he was very happy, delighting in study, 
in rural occupations and rural prospects. He would 
break from a criticism on Porson's Euripides to look 
for the little pigs. I remember his calling out to the 
Chertsey hills, when a thick mist, which had for some 
time concealed them, rolled away, " Good morning 
to you ! I am glad to see you again." There was a 
walk in his grounds which led to a lane through 
which the farmers used to pass ; and he would stop 
them, and talk to them, with great interest, about 
the price of turnips, &c. I was one day with him 
in the Louvre, when he suddenly turned from the 
pictures, and, looking out at the window, exclaimed, 
" This hot sun will burn up my turnips at St. Anne's 
Hill." 

In London mixed society Fox conversed little ; 
but at his own house in the country, with his inti- 
mate friends, he would talk on for ever, with all the 
openness and simplicity of a child: he has continued 
talking to me for half-an-hour after he had taken 
up his bed-room candle. — I have seen it somewhere 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 75 

stated that Fox liked to talk about great people : 
nothing can be more untrue ; he hardly ever al- 
luded to them. I remember, indeed, that he once 
mentioned to me Queen Charlotte, calling her " that 
bad woman." 

He was very shy, and disliked being stared at. 
Windham and I accompanied him one night to 
Vauxhall, where he was much annoyed at being 
followed about, as a spectacle, from place to place. 
On such occasions he was not only shy, but gauche. 

One morning at his own house, while speaking 
to me of his travels, Fox could not recollect the 
name of a particular town in Holland, and was much 
vexed at the treacherousness of his memory. He 
had a dinner-party that day; and, just as he had 
applied the carving-knife to the sirloin, the name of 
the town having suddenly occurred to him, he roared 
out exultingly, to the astonishment of the company, 
" Gorcum, Gorcum !" 

Fox saw Voltaire at Ferney. Their interview 
was described to me in a letter by Uvedale Price,* 

* Created a baronet in 1828.— A small portion of that letter, 
about Fox's visit to Voltaire, has lately been printed in Memorials 
and Correspondence of C. J. Fox, edited by Lord J. Russell, vol. i. 46. 



70 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

who went there with him : but unfortunately I no 
longer possess that letter ; I lent it to Lord Holland, 
and never could get it back. 

— An account of the same visit, from the pen of the same writer, 
occurs in a letter to my unfortunate friend the late E. H. Barker, 
dated March 24, 1827, from which I shall not scruple to make a 
long extract : — 

" But among the characters of the second generation so ably 
drawn by Mr. Butler [in his Reminiscences'], to me much the most 
interesting is that of Charles Fox. Our friendship and intimacy, 
which began at Eton, continued without interruption through life. 
While Etonians, we acted together in the plays given at Holland 
House, which, from the high character and connections of its owner, 
from the premature talents of C. Eox, two years younger than 
myself, and from the peculiarly lovely countenance and sweet-toned 
voice of Lady Sarah Lenox, our Jane Shore (whom, as Gloucester, 
I could hardly bring myself to speak to as harshly as my character 
required), these plays had at the time great celebrity. We were at 
Oxford together, were almost constantly together at Florence, where 
we studied Italian under the same master at the same time. 

" From Borne we travelled together along the eastern coast to 
Venice, and thence to Turin, where we met by appointment our ex- 
cellent friend and schoolfellow, Lord Fitzwilliam, who is mentioned 
by Mr. Butler in a few words, but most impressively, as spoken of 
him by Fox. All this, I am aware, can have little interest for you : 
but having the excuse of Mr. Butler's reminiscences, I have in- 
dulged myself in putting down mine, as they recall a period of great 
and unmixed delight. I then witnessed daily and hourly that 
characteristic good nature, that warm and unalterable attachment 
to his friends of w r hich Mr. B. speaks in so impressive a manner: 
and likewise witnessed on more than one occasion, w r hat was no 
less characteristic, his abhorrence of any thing like t} T ranny, oppres- 
sion, or cruelty. Having got so far on my journey, I shall e'en 
proceed with it : from Turin we all three set out for Geneva, but 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL SOGERS. 77 

It is well known that Fox visited Gibbon at Lau- 
sanne ; and lie was much gratified by the visit. 
Gibbon, he said, talked a great deal, walking up and 
down the room, and generally ending his sentences 
with a genitive case ; every now and then, too, cast- 
ing a look of complacency on his own portrait by Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, which hung over the chimney-piece, 
— that wonderful portrait, in which, while the odd- 
ness and vulgarity of the features are refined away, 
the likeness is perfectly preserved. — Fox used to say 
that Gibbon's History was immortal, because nobody 
could do without it, — nobody, without vast expense 
of time and labour, could get elsewhere the informa- 

went out of our direct road to that most singular and striking place, 
the Grande Chartreuse, so finely described in Gray's Alcaic Ode. 
From Geneva Fox and I went to Voltaire at Ferney, having ob- 
tained a permission then seldom granted. It is an event in one's 
life to have seen and heard that extraordinary man : he was old and 
infirm, and, in answer to Fox's note and request, said that the name 
of Fox was sufficient, and that he could not refuse seeing us, ' mais 
que nous venions pour Vexterrer: He conversed in a lively manner, 
walking with us to and fro in a sort of alley ; and at parting gave 
us a list of some of his works, adding, ' Ce sont des livres de quoi il 
faut se munir] they were such as would fortify our young minds 
against religious prejudices. Fox quitted us at Geneva, went to 
England, and commenced his political career. I went with Fitz- 
william through the finest parts of Switzerland, and then down the 
Ehine to Spa, and met him again at Paris: and there ends my 
foreign journal, and high time it should." 



78 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

tion which it contains. — I think, and so Lord Gren- 
ville thought, that the introductory chapters are the 
finest part of that history : it was certainly more 
difficult to write them than the rest of the work. 

Fox had the highest admiration of Lord North ; he 
considered him a consummate debater. He thought 
very highly too of Dr. Laurence's speeches ; and 
said that they only failed in making a deep impres- 
sion because his manner of delivery was so bad. He 
disliked Sheridan's famous speeches at Hastings's 
trial :* yet they fascinated Burke ; and to them Fox 
attributed the change of style which is visible in 
Burke's later compositions. He did not greatly ad- 
mire Burke's celebrated Reflections. 

Never in my life did I hear any thing equal to 
Fox's speeches in reply, — they were wonderful. — 
Burke did not do himself justice as a speaker: his 
manner was hurried, and he always seemed to be 
in a passion.-! — Pitt's voice sounded as if he had 
worsted in his mouth. 

* In Westminster Hall. — It must be remembered, however, that 
the perhaps more famous speech in the House of Commons, 7th 
Feb. 1787, in which Sheridan brought forward against Hastings 
the charge relative to the Begum Princesses of Oude, was publicly 
eulogised by Fox as a matchless piece of eloquence. — Ed. 

f " Burke," said Mr* Maltby (see notice prefixed to the Porso- 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL BOGERS. 79 

Porson said that " Pitt carefully considered his 
sentences before he uttered them ; but that Fox 
threw himself into the middle of his, and left it to 
God Almighty to get him out again." * 

Malone was one day walking down Dover Street 
with Burke, when the latter all at once drew himself 
up and carried his head aloft with an air of great 
hauteur. Malone perceived that this was occasioned 
by the approach of Fox, who presently passed them 
on the other side of the street. After Fox had gone 
by, Burke asked Malone very eagerly, " Did he look 
at me ?" 

Fox once said to me that "Burke was a most 
impracticable person, a most unmanageable colleague, 
— that he never would support any measure, however 
convinced he might be in his heart of its utility, if it 



niana in this volume), " always disappointed me as a speaker. I 
have heard him, during his speeches in the House, make use of the 
most vulgar expressions, such as ' three nips of a straw,' ' three 
skips of a louse,' &c. ; and, on one occasion when I was present, he 
introduced, as an illustration, a most indelicate story about a French 
king who asked his physician why his natural children were so 
much finer than his legitimate." — Ed. 

* Porson was thinking of Sterne. " I begin with writing the 
first sentence, — and trusting to Almighty God for the second." 
Tristram Shandy, vol. v. 192, ed. 1775. — Ed. 



80 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

had been first proposed by another:"* and he once 
used these very words, " After all, Burke was a 
damned wrong-headed fellow, through his whole life 
jealous and obstinate." 

Mrs. Crewe j- told me that, on some occasion, when 
it was remarked that Fox still retained his early love 
for France and every thing French, Burke said, 
" Yes; he is like a cat, — he is fond of the house, 
though the family be gone." 

I once dined at Mr. Stone's (at Hackney) with 
Fox, Sheridan, Talleyrand, Madame de Genlis, Pa- 
mela, and some other celebrated persons of the time. 
A natural son of Fox, a dumb boy (who was the 
very image of his father, and who died a few years 
after, when about the age of fifteen) was also there, 
having come, for the occasion, from Braidwood's 
Academy. To him Fox almost entirely confined his 
attention, conversing with him by the fingers: and 

* " Cassius. But what of Cicero? shall we sound him? 
I think he will stand very strong with us. 
* * * * * 

Brutus. O name him not: let us not break with him; 
Eor he will never follow any thing 
That other men begin." 

Shakespeare's Julius Casar^ act ii. sc. 1. — Ed. 
f Afterwards Lady Crewe. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL BOGEKS. 81 

their eyes glistened as they looked at each other. 
Talleyrand remarked to me, " how strange it was, to 
dine in company with the first orator in Europe, and 
only see him talk with his fingers '"—That day I 
offended Madame de Genlis by praising the Contes 
Moraux of Marmontel, with whom she had quarrelled 
violently. 

At a dinner-party, where I was, Fox met Aikin. 
" I am greatly pleased with your Miscellaneous 
Pieces , Mr. Aikin," said Fox (alluding to the volume 
written partly by Aikin, and partly by his sister Mrs. 
Barbauld). Aikin bowed. " I particularly admire," 
continued Fox, " your essay Against Inconsistency 
in our Expectations." " That," replied Aikin, " is 
my sister's." — " I like much," resumed Fox, " your 
essay On Monastic Institutions." " That," answered 
Aikin, " is also my sister's." Fox thought it best to 
say no more about the book. 

I was present at a dinner-party given by William 
Smith in Westminster, when Fox would not take 
the slightest notice of Home Tooke, — would not 
look at him, nor seem to hear any of the good things 
he said. It was the most painful scene of the kind 
I was ever witness to, except what occurred at my 

G 



82 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

own house, when the Duke of Wellington treated 
Lord Holland much in the same way. 

At another of Smith's dinners, the conversation 
turned on Wilberforce ; when somebody put the 
query, — If "Wilberforce were compelled to desert 
either the cause of the slaves, or the party of Mr. 
Pitt, to which would he adhere ? " Oh," said Fox, 
" he would be for Barabbas." But that was said by 
Fox merely as a joke ; for he greatly respected Pitt ; 
and I remember that, on another occasion at Smith's, 
when Tierney, &c, endeavoured to persuade Fox 
that Pitt was not uttering his real sentiments about 
the abolition of the slave-trade, he would not be so 
persuaded.* — Pitt, too, had the highest respect for 
Fox. One night, after Fox had been speaking, a 
noble lord, coming out of the House with Pitt, be- 
gan to abuse Fox's speech. u Don't disparage it," 
said Pitt ; " nobody could have made it but himself." 

The Duke of Richmond, Fox, and Burke, were 

once conversing about history, philosophy, and poetry. 

The Duke said, " I prefer reading history to philoso- 

* " During the debates on the war with France, I heard Fox 
characterise a speech of Pitt as * one that would have excited the 
admiration and envy of Demosthenes.'" Me. Maltby (see note 
prefixed to the Porsoniana in this volume). — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 83 

phy or poetry, because history is truth." Both Fox 
and Burke disagreed with him : they thought that 
poetry was truth, being a representation of human 
nature : and Fox had some thoughts of writing an 
essay on the subject. — Lady Glenbervie told me that 
her father Lord North disliked reading history, be- 
cause he always doubted its truth.* 

In 1792 the Duke of Portland called a meet- 
ing of the Whigs at Burlington House, to consider 
the propriety of their supporting the Proclamation 
against seditious writings and democratical conspi- 
racies. Francis Duke of Bedford went there. On 
entering the room, he said to the Duke of Portland, 
" Is Mr. Fox here ?" « No."— « Has he been in- 
vited ?" "No."— " Then," replied the Duke of 
Bedford, " I must wish you all good morning;" and 
immediately withdrew, j- The Duke of Bedford was 

* " Thinking to amuse my father once, after his retirement from 
the ministry, I offered to read a book of history. * Any thing but 
history,' said he ; ' for history must be false.' " Walpoliana, vol. i. 60. 
—Ed. 

f Many years after I had written down this anecdote, Mr. Rogers 
remarked to me " how poorly" it is told in Lord Holland's Memoirs 
of the Whig Party, i. 16 (1852): " The Duke of Bedford, on hearing 
that Mr. Fox was not likely to come, drily observed, ' Then I am 
sure I have nothing to do here,' and left the room."— Ed. 



84 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

stanch to his principles till the hour of his death ; 
and we owe him much. 

Fox used to declare of himself that he was "a 
most painstaking person." When he came into office, 
finding that his handwriting was very bad, he took 
lessons to improve it. 

He one day pronounced himself to be a bad 
carver, and, when Mrs. Fox confirmed it, he said, 
" Yes, my dear, I thought you'd agree with me." 

I saw Lunardi make the first ascent in a balloon 
which had been witnessed in England. It was from 
the Artillery Ground. Fox was there with his bro- 
ther General F. The crowd was immense. Fox, 
happening to put his hand down to his watch, found 
another hand upon it, which he immediately seized. 
"My friend," said he to the owner of the strange 
hand, "you have chosen an occupation which will be 
your ruin at last."—" O, Mr. Fox," was the reply, 
" forgive me, and let me go ! I have been driven to 
this course by necessity alone ; my wife and children 
are starving at home." Fox, always tender-hearted, 
slipped a guinea into the hand, and then released it. 
On the conclusion of the show, Fox was proceeding 
to look what o'clock it was. " Good God," cried he, 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 85 

" my watch is gone!" — " Yes," answered General F., 
" I know it is ; I saw your friend take it." — " Saw 
him &ke it ! and you made no attempt to stop him ?" 
— " Really, you and he appeared to be on such good 
terms with each other, that I did not choose to in- 
terfere." 

I was walking through the Louvre with Fox, 
when he all but cut Mackintosh, passing him with 
a nod and a " How d'ye do ?" and he gave me to 
understand that he had done so because he was angry 
at Mackintosh for having accepted a place in India * 
from the Tories. Fitzpatrick, however, told me the 
real cause of Fox's anger ; and it was this ; — Mrs. 
Mackintosh had not called upon Mrs. Fox, whom Fox 
had recently acknowledged as his wife. Such slight 
things sometimes influence the conduct of great men. 
Most unfortunately, one morning during break- 
fast at St. Anne's Hill, I repeated and praised 
Goldsmith's song, " When lovely woman stoops to 
folly," &c, quite forgetting that it must necessarily 
hurt the feelings of Mrs. Fox. She seemed a good 
deal discomposed by it. Fox merely remarked, 
" Some people write damned nonsense," 

When Buonaparte said to Fox, he was con- 



86 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

vinced that Windham was implicated in the contriv- 
ance of the Infernal Machine, Fox warmly repelled 
such an aspersion on Windham's character, assuring 
the First Consul that no Englishman would degrade 
himself by being concerned in so vile a business. — 
I told this to Windham, who answered very coldly, 
" Well, I should have said the same of him under 
similar circumstances." — I have heard Windham 
speak very disrespectfully of Fox in the House, 
after their political quarrel. 

Fox said that Sir Joshua Reynolds never enjoyed 
Richmond,* — that he used to say the human face 
was his landscape. Fox did not much admire Sir 
Joshua's pictures in the grand style ; he greatly pre- 
ferred those of a playful character : he did not like 
much even the Ugolino ; but he thought the boys in 
the Nativity were charming. 

Once, at Paris, talking to Fox about Le Sueur's 
pictures, I said that I doubted if any artist had ever 
excelled Le Sueur in painting white garments. Fox 
replied that he thought Andrea Sacchi superior to 

* Where Reynolds had a villa. — In Mr. Rogers's collection of 
pictures is an exquisite landscape by Sir Joshua, — a view from 
Richmond Hill, with the features of the scene a little altered. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL BO GEES. 87 

Le Sueur in that respect. I mention this to show 
that Fox was not only fond of painting, but had 
given minute attention to it.* 

He was an eager chess-player : I have heard him 
say, on coming down to breakfast, that he had not 
been able to sleep for thinking about some parti- 
cular move. 

While young Betty w r as in all his glory, I went 
with Fox and Mrs. Fox, after dining with them in 
Arlington Street, to see him act Hamlet; and, dur- 
ing the play-scene, Fox, to my infinite surprise, said, 
" This is finer than Garrick."f — How wise it was in 
Kemble and Mrs. Siddons quietly to withdraw from 
the stage during the Betty furor, and then as quietly 
to return to it, as if nothing unusual had occurred ! 

* For an account of the delight which Fox received from visit- 
ing the Louvre, see Trotter's Memoirs of Fox, p. 209. — Ed. 

f Such criticism will now seem (and undoubtedly is) preposter- 
ous. But we must recollect that there was a marvellous charm 
about the young Boscius. — " Xorthcote then spoke of the boy, as 
he always calls him (Master Betty). He asked if I had ever seen 
him act ; and I said, Yes, and was one of his admirers. He answer- 
ed, * Oh ! yes, it was such a beautiful effusion of natural sensibility; 
and then that graceful play of the limbs in youth gave such an ad- 
vantage over every one about him. Humphreys (the artist) said, 
'He had never seen the little Apollo off the pedestal before.'" 
Hazlitt's Conversations of Northcote, p. 23. — Ed. 



88 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Fox said that Barry's Romeo was superior to 
Garrick's. 

" If I had a son/' observed Fox, " I should insist 
on his frequently writing English verses, whether he 
had a taste for poetry or not, because that sort of 
composition forces one to consider very carefully the 
exact meanings of words." 

I introduced Wordsworth to Fox, having taken 
him with me to a ball given by Mrs. Fox. <£ Iam 
very glad to see you, Mr. Wordsworth, though I am 
not of your faction," was all that Fox said to him, — 
meaning that he admired a school of poetry different 
from that to which Wordsworth belonged. 

Fox considered Burnet's style to be perfect. We 
were once talking of an historian's introducing oc- 
casionally the words of other writers into his work 
without marking them as quotations, when Fox said, 
"that the style of some of the authors so treated 
might need a little mending, but that Burnet's re- 
quired none." 

He thought that Robertson's account of Colum- 
bus was very pleasingly written. 

He was so fond of Dryden, that he had some idea 
of editing his w T orks. It was absurd, he said, not to 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 89 

print the originals by Chaucer along with Dryden's 
versions of them ; and absurd in Malone to print all 
Dryden's Prefaces by themselves. "Dryden's imi- 
tations of Horace/' he would say, "are better than 
the originals : how fine this is ! — 

1 Happy the man, and happy he alone. 

He who can call to-day his own ; 

He who, secure within, can say, 
To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have liv'cl to-day ; 

Be fair or foul, or rain or shine, 
The joys I have possess'd, in spite of Fate, are mine; 

Not Heaven itself upon the past has power, 
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.' w * 

One forenoon, at his own house, Fox was talk- 
ing to me very earnestly about Dryden, when he 
suddenly recollected that (being in office) he ought 
to make his appearance at the King's levee. It was 
so late that, not having time to change his dress, he 
set off for Buckingham House " accoutred as he 
was ;" and when somebody remarked to him that 
his coat was not quite the thing, he replied, " Xo 

* Twenty- ninth Ode of the First Book of Horace paraphrased, 
g-c.— Ed. 



90 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

matter ; he [i. e. George the Third] is so blind that 
he can't distinguish what I have on.". 

There was a period of his life when Fox used to 
say that he could not forgive Milton for having oc- 
casioned him the trouble of reading through a poem 
{Paradise Lost), three parts of which were not worth 
reading. He afterwards, however, estimated it more 
justly.* Milton's prose works he never could endure. 

He said that Mrs. Sheridan's Sidney Biddulph was 
the best of all modern novels. (By the by, Sheridan 
used to declare that he had never read it !f) 

When Fox was a young man, a copy of Mas- 
singer accidentally fell into his hands : he read it, 
and, for some time after, could talk of nothing but 
Massinger. 

He thought so highly of the Isacco of Metastasio, 
that he considered it as one of the four most beau- 
tiful compositions produced during the century ; the 

* In a letter to Trotter, after noticing the predominance of " the 
grand and terrific and gigantic" in iEschylus, Fox continues ; " This 
never suits my taste ; and I feel the same objection to most parts 
of the Paradise Lost, though in that poem there are most splendid 
exceptions, Eve, Paradise, &c." Trotter's Memoirs of Fox, p. 520. 
—Ed. 

f The incident, in The School for Scandal, of Sir Oliver's pre- 
senting himself to his relations in disguise, is manifestly taken by 
Sheridan from his mother's novel. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 91 

other three being Pope's Eloisa to Abelard, Voltaire's 
Zaire, and Gray's Elegy.* 

" No one/' said Fox, " could be an ill-tempered 
man who wrote so much nonsense as Swift did." 

His admiration of Ariosto was extreme.— He 
thought Petrarch's Latin letters better than his Son- 
nets. 

He once pointed out to me, as excellent, this pas- 
sage of Paiey. " The distinctions of civil life are 
almost always insisted upon too much, and urged too 
far. Whatever, therefore, conduces to restore the 
level, by qualifying the dispositions which grow out 
of great elevation or depression of rank, improves the 
character on both sides. Now things are made to 
appear little by being placed beside what is great. 
In which manner, superiorities, that occupy the whole 
field of the imagination, will vanish or shrink to their 
proper diminutiveness, when compared with the dis- 
tance by which even the highest of men are removed 
from the Supreme Being, and this comparison is 
naturally introduced by all acts of joint worship. If 
ever the poor man holds up his head, it is at church : 

* Yet, v& have been told. Fox did not consider the Elegy as 
Gray's best poem: see p. 36. — Ed. 



92 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

if ever the rich man views him with respect, it is 
there: and both will be the better, and the public 
profited, the oftener they meet in a situation, in 
which the consciousness of dignity in the one is tem- 
pered and mitigated, and the spirit of the other 
erected and confirmed."* 

Fox used to read Homer through once every 
year. On my asking him, " Which poem had you 
rather have written, the Iliad or the Odyssey ?" he 
answered, " I know which I had rather read" (mean- 
ing the Odyssey). f 

Euripides was his grand favourite among the 
Greek poets. He fancied that Shakespeare must 
have met with some translation of Euripides, % for he 
could trace resemblances between passages of their 
dramas : e. g. what Alcestis in her last moments says 
about her servants is like what the dying Queen 
Katharine (in Henry the Eighth) says about hers, &c. 

He considered the CEdipus Coloneus as the best 
play of Sophocles ; and he admired greatly his JElectra. 

* Mor. and Pol. Philosophy, b. v. ch. 4. — Ed. 

f " I suppose," says Eox, in a letter to Trotter, " as soon as you 
have done the Iliad, you will read the Odyssey, which, though certainly 
not so fine a poem, is, to my taste, still pleasanter to read." Trotter's 
Memoirs of Fox, p. 494. — Ed. J A mere fancy. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 93 

He did not much like Caesar's Commentaries ; 
they appeared to him rather dry, and deficient in 
thought. He said that the letter to Oppius and 

Balbus,* which is very little known, was the piece 

that did Caesar most honour ; and that he had once 

transcribed it with the intention of sending it to 

Buonaparte, when the news of the Duke d'Enghien's 

death made him change his mind. 

He observed that the Greek historians generally 

* Extant in the collection of Cicero's Epist. ad Att. lib. ix. 7. c. 
It was written at the commencement of the civil war; and (in the 
translation of Heberden) is as follows : i; I am very glad that you 
express in your letter how much you approve of what has been done 
at Cornnium. I shall willingly adopt your advice; and the more 
so, because of my own accord I had resolved to show every lenity, 
and to use my endeavours to conciliate Pompeius. Let us try by 
these means if we can regain the affections of ail people, and ren- 
der our victory lasting. Others from their cruelty have not been 
able to avoid the hatred of mankind, nor long to retain their victory ; 
except E. Sulla alone, whom I do not mean to imitate. Let this be 
a new method of conquering, to fortify ourselves with kindness and 
liberality. How this may be done, some things occur to my own 
mind, and many others may be found. To this subject I request 
your attention. I have taken Cn. Magius, Pompeius"s prsefect. I 
accordingly put in practice my own principle, and immediately re- 
leased him. Already two of Pompeius's praefects of engineers have 
fallen into my power, and have been released. If they are dis- 
posed to be grateful, they should exhort Pompeius to prefer my 
friendship to that of these people, who have always been the worst 
enemies to him and to me; by whose artifices it has happened that 
the Republic has come into this condition. 5 ' — Ed. 



94 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

told nothing but truth, while the Latin historians 
generally told nothing but lies. 

He was a constant reader of Virgil ; and had 
been so from a very early period. There is at Hol- 
land House a copy of Virgil covered with Fox's 
manuscript notes, written when he was a boy, and 
expressing the most enthusiastic admiration of that 
poet. 

He once told me that the extracts which he had 
seen from Hippocrates had given him a high opinion 
of that writer ; — that one of his aphorisms was excel- 
lent,—" The second-best remedy is better than the 
best, if the patient likes it best;" — and that he in- 
tended to read his works. 

Afterwards, calling upon him in Stable Yard 
when he happened to be ill, I found him reading 
Hippocrates. — On that occasion I said I wished that 
the new administration would put down the east 
wind by an Act of Parliament. He replied, smiling 
(and waking, as it were, from one of his fits of torpor), 
that they would find it difficult to do that, but that 
they would do as much good in that as they would 
in any thing else. 

He said that Lear, Othello, and Macbeth were 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 95 

the best of Shakespeare's works ; that the first act of 
Hamlet was pre-eminent ; that the ghost in that play 
was quite unequalled, — there was nothing like it; 
and that Hamlet was not mad. — On another occa- 
sion he said that the character of Macbeth was very 
striking and original, — that at first he is an object 
of our pity, and that he becomes gradually worse 
and worse, till at last he has no virtue left except 
courage. 

He thought Raleigh a very fine writer. Boling- 
broke he did not like. Surrey was " too old" for 
him. 

He said that Congreve's Way of the World was 
a charming comedy, but his Mourning Bride alto- 
gether execrable ; that Sheridan's Pizarro was the 
worst thing possible. 

He had never been able to read Mickle's Lusiad 
through. He once met Mickle, and took a dislike 
to him. 

He was fond of the song, " The heavy hours are 
almost past," by Lord Lyttelton ■ whose son, he said, 
was a very bad man, — downright wicked. 

He thought Mrs. Barbauld's Life of Richardson 
admirable ; and regretted that she wasted her talents 



96 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

in writing books for children (excellent as those 
books might be), now that there were so many pieces 
of that description. 

The Adventurer, he said, was very poor; The 
World far superior, and he had read it with pleasure. 

He thought Tickell's* lines On the Death of 
Addison quite perfect ; and he liked a large portion 
of his Kensington Gardens. 

He often spoke with high praise of Cowper's 
Epistle to Joseph Hill. It was through Windham 
that he first became acquainted with Cowper's poetry. 

Very shortly before he died, he complained of 
great uneasiness in his stomach ; and Cline advised 
him to try the effects of a cup of coffee. It was ac- 
cordingly ordered : but, not being brought so soon 
as was expected, Mrs. Fox expressed some impa- 
tience ; upon which Fox said, with his usual sweet 
smile, " Remember, my dear, that good coffee can- 
not be made in a moment." 

Lady Holland announced the death of Fox in 
her own odd manner to those relatives and intimate 



* " Tickell's merit," Wordsworth remarked to me, " is not 
sufficiently known. I think him one of the very best writers of 
occasional verses." — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 97 

friends of his who were sitting in a room near his 
bed-chamber, and waiting to hear that he had 
breathed his last; — she walked through the room 
with her apron thrown over her head. 

Trotter's Memoirs of Fox, though incorrect in 
some particulars, is a very pleasing book. Trotter 
died in Ireland : he was reduced to great straits ; 
and Mrs. Fox sent him, at different times, as much 
as several hundred pounds, though she could ill spare 
the money. 

How fondly the surviving friends of Fox che- 
rished his memory ! Many years after his death, I 
was at a fete given by the Duke of Devonshire at 
Chiswick House. Sir Robert Adair and I wandered 
about the apartments, up and down stairs. " In 
which room did Fox expire ?" asked Adair. I re- 
plied, "In this very room." Immediately Adair 
burst into tears with a vehemence of grief such as 
I hardly ever saw exhibited by a man. 

Fox's History of the Early Part of the Reign of 
James the Second has been greatly undervalued ; but 
it will be properly estimated in future times. It 
contains charming passages. Here are two : when 
I read them, I seem to listen to Fox conversing :— = 

H 



98 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

" From the execution of the king to the death of 
Cromwell, the government was, with some variation 
of forms, in substance monarchical and absolute, as 
a government established by a military force will 
almost invariably be, especially when the exertions 
of such a force are continued for any length of time.. 
If to this general rule our own age, and a people 
whom their origin and near relation to us would al- 
most warrant us to call our own nation, have afforded 
a splendid and perhaps a solitary exception, we must 
reflect not only, that a character of virtues so happily 
tempered by one another, and so wholly unalloyed 
with any vices, as that of Washington, is hardly to 
be found in the pages of history, but that even 
Washington himself might not have been able to 
act his most glorious of all parts, without the exist- 
ence of circumstances uncommonly favourable, and 
almost peculiar to the country which was to be 
the theatre of it. Virtue like his depends not in- 
deed upon time or place ; but although in no 
country or time would he have degraded himself 
into a Pisistratus, or a Caesar, or a Cromwell, he 
might have shared the fate of a Cato or a De Witt ; 
or, like Ludlow and Sydney, have mourned in 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGEES. 99 

exile the lost liberties of his country."* — The other 
passage is this : — 

" But to Temple's sincerity his subsequent con- 
duct gives abundant testimony. When he had reason 
to think that his services could no longer be useful 
to his country, he withdrew wholly from public busi- 
ness, and resolutely adhered to the preference of 
philosophical retirement, which, in his circumstances, 
was just, in spite of every temptation which occurred 
to bring him back to the more active scene. The 
remainder of his life he seems to have employed in 
the most noble contemplations and the most elegant 
amusements ; every enjoyment heightened, no doubt, 
by reflecting on the honourable part he had acted in 
public affairs, and without any regret on his own ac- 
count (whatever he might feel for his country) at 
having been driven from them."f 



Burke said to Mrs. Crewe :J " A dull proser is 
more endurable than a dull joker." 

He also said to her : " England is a moon shone 

* P. 17.— Ed. f P. 26.— Ed. 

% Afterwards Lady Crewe. — Ed. 



100 RECOLLECTIONS OE THE 

upon by France. France has all things within 
herself; and she possesses the power of recovering 
from the severest blows. England is an artificial 
country: take away her commerce, and what has 
she?" 



Foote was once talking away at a party, when a 
gentleman said to him, " I beg your pardon, Mr. 
Foote, but your handkerchief is half-out of your 
pocket." — " Thank you, sir," answered Foote ; " you 
know the company better than I do." 

Fox told me that Lord William Bentinck once 
invited Foote to meet him and some others at dinner 
in St. James's Street; and that they were rather 
angry at Lord William for having done so, expecting 
that Foote would prove only a bore, and a check on 
their conversation. iC But," said Fox, " we soon 
found that we were mistaken : whatever we talked 
about, — whether fox-hunting, the turf, or any other 
subject, — Foote instantly took the lead, and delighted 
us all." 

Murphy, who used to dwell with enthusiasm on 
his recollections of Chatham's oratory, was once in 
the gallery of the House with Foote, when Pitt 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 101 

(Lord Chatham) was putting forth all his power in an 
attack on Murray (Lord Mansfield). " Shall we go 
home now ?" said Murphy. — " No/' replied Foote ; 
" let us wait till he has made the little man (Mur- 
ray) vanish entirely." 

There was no end to Foote's jokes about Garrick's 
parsimony. " Garrick," said Foote, " lately invited 
Hurd to dine with him in the Adelphi; and after 
dinner, the evening being very warm, they walked 
up and down in front of the house. As they passed 
and re-passed the dining-room windows, Garrick was 
in a perfect agony ; for he saw that there was a thief 
in one of the candles which were burning on the 
table ; and yet Hurd was a person of such conse- 
quence that he could not run away from him to pre- 
vent the waste of his tallow." 

At the Chapter Coffee-house, Foote and his 
friends were making a contribution for the relief of 
a poor fellow (a decayed player, I believe), who was 
nick-named the Captain of the Four Winds, because 
his hat was worn into four spouts. Each person of 
the company dropped his mite into the hat, as it was 
held out to him. " If Garrick hears of this," said 
Foote, "he will certainly send us his hat." 



102 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

The then Duke of Cumberland (the foolish* 
Duke, as he was called) came one night into Foote's 
green-room at the Haymarket Theatre. " Well, 
Foote," said he, " here I am, ready, as usual, to 
swallow all your good things." — " Upon my soul," 
replied Foote, " your Royal Highness must have an 
excellent digestion, for you never bring any up 
again." 

During my youth I used to go to the Hampstead 
Assemblies, which were frequented by a great deal 
of good company. There I have danced four or five 
minuets in one evening. 

Beau Nash was once dancing a minuet at Bath 
with a Miss Lunn. She was so long of giving him 
both her hands (the figure by which the lady, when 
she thinks proper, brings the performance to a close), 
that he lost all patience, and, suiting the words to 
the tune (which was Marshal Saxes minuet), he 
sung out, as she passed him, — 

" Miss Lunn, Miss Lunn, 
Will you never have done ?" 



* For a vindication of his Koyal Highness from this epithet, see 
Boaden's Life of Kemble, ii. 17. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGEKS. 103 

I always distrust the accounts of eminent men 
by their contemporaries. None of us has any reason 
to slander Homer or Julius Caesar ; but we find it 
very difficult to divest ourselves of prejudices when 
we are writing about persons with whom we have 
been acquainted. 



Lord St. Helens (who had been ambassador 
to Russia) told me, as a fact, this anecdote of 
the Empress Catherine. She frequently had little 
whist-parties, at which she sometimes played, and 
sometimes not. One night, when she was not play- 
ing, but walking about from table to table, and 
watching the different hands, she rang the bell to 
summon the page-in-waiting from an ante-chamber. 
No page appeared. She rang the bell again ; and 
again without effect. Upon this, she left the room, 
looking daggers, and did not return for a very consi- 
derable time ; the company supposing that the unfor- 
tunate page was destined to the knout or Siberia. 
On entering the ante-chamber, the Empress found 
that the page, like his betters, was busy at whist, 
and that, when she had rung the bell, he happened 



104 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

to have so very interesting a hand that he could not 
make up his mind to quit it. Now, what did the 
Empress do ? she despatched the page on her errand, 
and then quietly sat down to hold his cards till he 
should return. 

Lord St. Helens also told me that he and Segur 
were with the Empress in her carriage, when the 
horses took fright, and ran furiously down hill. The 
danger was excessive. When it was over, the Em- 
press said, " Mon etoile vous a sauvee." 



Hare's wit, once so famous, owed perhaps not a 
little to his manner of uttering it. Here is a speci- 
men. Fox was sitting at Brookes's, in a very moody 
humour, having lost a considerable sum at cards, 
and was indolently moving a pen backwards and 
forwards over a sheet of paper. " What is he draw- 
ing ?" said some one to Hare. " Any thing but a 
draft," was the reply. 

General Fitzpatrick was at one time nearly as 
famous for his wit as Hare. During the latter part 
of his long life he had withdrawn a good deal from 
society. I took farewell of him the day but one 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGKEKS. 105 

before he died. On the day immediately preceding 
his death, I walked to his house in Arlington Street 
to inquire for him ; and, just as I reached the door, 
Mrs. Fox was coming from it, sobbing violently. 

Jekyll, too, was celebrated for his wit ; but it 
was of that kind which amuses only for the moment. 
I remember that when Lady Cork gave a party at 
which she wore a most enormous plume, Jekyll said, 
" She was exactly a shuttle-cock, — all cork and 
feathers/' 



While Rousseau was lodging in Chiswick Ter- 
race, Fitzpatrick called upon him one day, and had 
not been long in the room when David Hume en- 
tered. Rousseau had lost a favourite dog ; and 
Hume, having exerted himself to recover it, now 
brought it back to its master, who thanked him 
with expressions of the most fervent gratitude, and 
shed tears of joy over the animal. 



Fitzpatrick, who had been much in the company 
of David Hume, used always to speak of him as " a 
delicious creature. - " 



106 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Hume told Cadell the bookseller that he had a 
great desire to be introduced to as many of the per- 
sons who had written against him as could be col- 
lected ; and requested Cadell to bring him and them 
together. Accordingly, Dr. Douglas, Dr. Adams, 
&c. &c, were invited by Cadell to dine at his house 
in order to meet Hume. They came ; and Dr. Price, 
who was of the party, assured me that they were all 
delighted with David. 



I knew Murphy long and intimately : I was in- 
troduced to him by the Piozzis at Streatham. 

On the first night of any of his plays, if the 
slightest symptoms of disapprobation were shown by 
the audience, Murphy always left the house, and took 
a walk in Covent-Garden Market : then, after having 
composed himself, he would return to the theatre. 

Garrick once, in conversation with Murphy, hav- 
ing insisted that it was much more difficult to write a 
play whose strength lay in the plot than one which 
depended on the dialogue for its effect, Murphy 
went to his favourite haunt, the Talbot at Richmond, 
and wrote, nearly at a single sitting, a comedy of the 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 107 

former description (I forget its name), which, very 
soon after, he presented to Garrick. 

The days had been when Murphy lived in the 
best society, and used to walk about arm-in-arm with 
Lord Loughborough : but I have seen them meet in 
the street, and salute each other very formally. 

Towards the close of his life, till he received a 
pension of 2001. per annum from the king,* Murphy 
was in great pecuniary difficulties. He had eaten him- 
self out of every tavern from the other side of Temple- 
Bar to the west end of the town. I have still in my 
possession several bills of his for money to a consider- 
able amount which he never repaid me. — He had 
borrowed from me two hundred pounds ; and a long 
time having elapsed without his taking any notice of 
the debt, I became rather uneasy (for two hundred 
pounds was then no trifling sum to me). At last, 
meeting him in Fleet Street, I asked him when he 
should be able to settle with me. " Are you going 
home ?" said he. " Yes," I replied ; and we walked 
to my chambers in the Temple. There, instead of 
making any arrangements for repaying me, he ex- 

* The pension was granted to him in 1803 : he died in 1805.— 
Ed. 



108 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

erted all his eloquence, but in vain, to induce me to 
lend him more money ; and I thanked heaven when 
I got rid of him. — He assigned over to me the whole 
of his works, including his Tacitus ; and I soon found 
that he had already disposed of them to a bookseller ! 
For this transaction Murphy came, in extreme agita- 
tion, to offer me a sort of apology, almost throwing 
himself on his knees. When he made his appear- 
ance, Porson and Maltby* happened to be in the 
room ;f but, Porson having said aside to Maltby, 
" We had better withdraw," they left me to my dis- 
agreeable conference with Murphy. 

One thing ought to be remembered to Murphy's 
honour: an actress, % with whom he had lived, be- 
queathed to him all her property, but he gave up 
every farthing of it to her relations. 

Murphy used to say that there were Four Estates 
in England, the King, the Lords, the Commons, and 
— the Theatres. He certainly would not say so, if he 
were alive now, when the national theatre is almost 
extinct. 

* See notice prefixed to the Porsoniana in this volume. — Ed. 
f Mr. Kogers was then lodging in Prince's Street, Hanover 
Square; from which he removed to St. James's Place. — Ed. 
% Miss Elliot.— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGERS. 109 

Henderson was a truly great actor ; his Hamlet 
and his Falstaff were equally good. He was a very 
fine reader too ; in his comic readings superior, of 
course, to Mrs. Siddons ; his John Gilpin was mar- 
vellous. 

He would frequently produce very unexpected 
" effects" in his readings : for instance, in the passage 
of Collins's Ode to Fear,— 

" Or throws him on the ridgy steep 
Of some loose-hanging rock to sleep ;"— 

he would suddenly pause after the words " loose- 
hanging rock," and then, starting back as if in amaze- 
ment, and lifting his arms above his head, he would 
slowly add — " to sleep !"* 



During his boyhood, Pitt was very weakly ; and 
his physician, Addington (Lord Sidmouth's father) 
ordered him to take port wine in large quantities : 
the consequence was, that, when he grew up, he 
could not do without it. Lord Grenville has seen 

* I must be allowed to observe, that I do not agree with Mr. 
Rogers in admiring the effect in question. It was certainly not in- 
tended by the poet. — Ed. 



110 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

him swallow a bottle of port in tumblerfuls, before 
going to the House. This, together with his habit 
of eating late suppers (indigestible cold veal-pies, 
&c), helped undoubtedly to shorten his life. Hus- 
kisson, speaking to me of Pitt, said that his hands 
shook so much, that, when he helped himself to salt, 
he was obliged to support the right hand with the 
left. 

Stothard the painter happened to be one evening 
at an inn on the Kent Road, when Pitt and Dundas 
put up there on their way from Walmer. Next 
morning, as they were stepping into their carriage, 
the waiter said to Stothard, " Sir, do you observe 
these two gentlemen?' 9 — "Yes," he replied; "and 
I know them to be Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas." — 
" Well, sir, how much wine do you suppose they 
drank last night?" — Stothard could not guess. — 
" Seven bottles, sir." 

Lord Grenville once said to Pitt, " I am really 
astonished at your fluency in public speaking : how 
was it acquired ?" He replied, " I believe it may be 
attributed to this circumstance : when I was a lad, 
my father used every evening to make me translate 
freely, before him and the rest of the family, those 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. Ill 

portions of Livy, Virgil, &c, which I had read in 

the morning with my tutor, Mr. Wilson." — Lord 
Grenville engaged a reporter to take down Pitt's 
speeches ; but the reporter completely failed, 

Pitt had been accustomed when a boy to go a- 
bird-nesting at Holwood, and hence (according to 
Lord Grenville) his wish to possess that place ; which 
he eventually did, 

I was assured by Lord Grenville that Pitt came 
into office with a fixed determination to improve the 
finances of the kingdom ; instead of which he greatly 
injured them. 

I don't remember having heard of any ion-mots 
being uttered by Pitt in society ; and those persons 
who were very intimate with him could tell me little 
in favour of his conversational powers : one great 
lady who knew him well, said that he was generally 
quite silent in company ; and a second could give 
me no other information about him, but that (being 
a tall man) "he sat very high at table !" 

There was a run on the Bank, and Pitt was un- 
certain what measures to take in consequence of it. 

He passed the whole night (as Mrs, told me) 

in walking up and down his drawing-room. Next 



112 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

morning he sent for certain bankers, and informed 
them that he had resolved on issuing five-pound 
notes. — I recollect a farmer coming to my father's 
bank, and receiving his money in five-pound notes, 
"What can I do with these?" he exclaimed; "how 
can I pay my men with them ?" 

Wilberforce requested Pitt to read Butler's Ana- 
logy.* Pitt did so; and was by no means satisfied 
with the reasoning in it. " My dear Wilberforce/' 
he said, "you may prove any thing by analogy." 



Combe, author of The Diaboliad, of Lord LytteU 
ton's Letters, and, more recently, of Doctor Syntax's 
Three Tours^ was a most extraordinary person. 
During a very long life, he had seen much of the 

* " One evening, at a party, when Butler's Analogy was men- 
tioned, Parr said in his usual pompous manner, ' I shall not declare, 
before the present company, my opinion of that book.' Bowles, 
who was just then leaving the room, muttered, * Nobody cares what 
you think of it.' Parr, overhearing him, roared out, * What's that 
you say, Bowles ?' and added, as the door shut on the offender, 
*It's lucky that Bowles is gone! for I should have put him to 
death.' " Mr. Maltby (see notice prefixed to the Porsoniana in 
this volume). — Ed. 

f And of an astonishing number of other works, — all published 
anonymously. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL BOGERS. 113 

world, — its ups and downs. He was certainly well- 
connected. Fitzpatrick recollected him at Douay 
College.* He moved once in the highest society, and 
was very intimate with the Duke of Bedford. Twenty 
thousand pounds were unexpectedly bequeathed to 
him by an old gentleman, who said " he ought to 
have been Combe's father" (that is, he had been on 
the point of marrying Combe's mother), and who 
therefore left him that large sum. Combe contrived 
to get rid of the money in an incredibly short time. 

Combe was staying at the house of Uvedale 
Price ;f and the Honourable Mr. St. John (author 
of Mary Queen of Scots%) was there also. The lat- 
ter, one morning, missed some bank-notes. Price, 
strongly suspecting who had taken them, mentioned 
the circumstance to Combe, and added, " Perhaps it 
would be as well if you cut short your visit here." — 

* According to The Gentleman's Magazine for August 1823, 
p. 185 (where his name is wrongly spelled Coombe), "he was edu- 
cated at Eton and Oxford:" which is not inconsistent with his having 
been at Douay also. But there seems to be great uncertainty about 
the particulars of his life. — Ed. 

f Afterwards a baronet. — Ed. 

J A very dull tragedy, in which Mrs. Sicldons continued to act 
the heroine occasionally up to the time of her retirement from the 
stage. — Ed. 



114- RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

" Oh, certainly," replied Combe with the greatest 
coolness ; " and allow me just to ask, whether hence- 
forth we are to be friends or acquaintances ?" — 
" Acquaintances, if you please," said Price.* — Long 
after this had happened, I was passing through Lei- 
cester Square with Price, when we met Combe : we 
both spoke to him ; but from that hour he always 
avoided me. 

Combe assured me that it was with him, not with 
Sterne, that " Eliza'f was in love ; that he used to 
meet her often beside a windmill near Brighton ; 
that he was once surprised in her bed-chamber, and 
fled through the window, leaving one of his shoes 

* From the tone of some letters written by Combe in his old 
age, one would certainly not suppose that he had on his conscience 
any thing of the kind above alluded to. " The only solid happiness 
in this life," he says, " is the performance of duty ; the rest, when 
compared with it, is not worth a regret or a remembrance. . . . 
A thousand hours of pleasurable gratification will weigh but as dust 

in the balance against one hour of solid virtue Few men 

have enjoyed more of the pleasures and brilliance of life than my- 
self; and you, I well know, will believe me, when I assure you 
that, in looking back upon it, the brightest intervals of it are those 
wherein I resisted inclination, checked impetuosity, overcame temp- 
tation, frowned folly out of countenance, or shed a tear over the 
unfortunate." Letters to Marianne, p. 7. — Ed. 

f A list of Combe's writings, drawn up by himself, and printed 
in The Gentleman's Magazine for May 1852, p. 467, includes " Letters 
supposed to have passed between Sterne and Eliza, 2 vols." — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 115 

behind him ; that, some days after, he encountered 
her as she was walking with a party on what is now 
the Steyne (at Brighton), and that, as she passed 
him, she displayed from her muff the toe of his shoe ! 
Combe died in the King's Bench,* where it was 
said that he had taken refuge in order to cheat his 
creditors, — erroneously, for he did not leave enough 
to pay the expenses of his funeral. 



Gibbon took very little exercise. He had been 
staying some time with Lord Sheffield in the coun- 
try; and when he was about to go away, the servants 
could not find his hat, (i Bless me/' said Gibbon, 
" I certainly left it in the hall on my arrival here." 
He had not stirred out of doors during the whole of 
the visit. 



These lines by Bishop (Head-master of Merchant- 
Tailors' School) are very good in their way:— 

* He died. June 19th. 1823. at his apartments in Lambeth Road, 
in his S2d year. See The Gentleman's Magazine for August 1823, 
p. 1S5. — Ed. 



11.6 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

" To Mrs. Bishop, with a Present of a Knife. 

' A knife,' dear girl, c cuts love,' they say ! 
Mere modish love perhaps it may ; 
For any tool, of any kind, 
Can separate — what was never join'd. 

The knife that cuts our love in two 
Will have much tougher work to do ; 
Must cut your softness, truth, and spirit, 
Down to the vulgar size of merit ; 
To level yours with modern taste, 
Must cut a world of sense to waste ; 
And from your single beauty's store 
Clip what would dizen out a score. 

That self-same blade from me must sever 
Sensation, judgment, sight, for ever; 
All memory of endearments past, 
All hope of comforts long to last ; 
All that makes fourteen years with you 
A summer, — and a short one too; 
All that affection feels and fears, 
When hours without you seem like years. 

Till that be done (and I'd as soon 
Believe this knife will chip the moon), 
Accept my present, undeterr'd, 
And leave their proverbs to the herd. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 117 

If in a kiss — delicious treat ! — 
Your lips acknowledge the receipt, 
Love, fond of suck substantial fare, 
And proud to play the glutton there, 
All thoughts of cutting will disdain, 
Save only — i cut and come again."' 



I never saw Paley ; but my brother knew him 
well, and liked him much. Paley used to say, in his 
broad dialect, " I am an advocate for corrooption*' 
(that is, parliamentary influence).* 



* Among several anecdotes of Paley. communicated to me long 
ago by a gentleman who resided in the neighbourhood, were these. 
— When Paley rose in the church, he set up a carriage, and, by his 
wife's directions, his arms were painted on the panels. They were 
copied from the engraving on a silver cup, which Mrs. P. supposed 
to be the bearings of his family. Paley thought it a pity to unde- 
ceive his wife; but the truth was. he had purchased the cup at a sale. 

He permitted. — nay. wished, — his daughters to go to evening 
parties ; but insisted that one of them should always remain at 
home, to give her assistance, if needed, by rubbing him. &c., in case 
of an attack of the rheumatic pains to which he was subject. 
"This," he said, " taught them natural affection." 

His fourth son chose to be a farmer, and was sent by his 
father to Eedburn, where, in order to train him to his business, he 
was frequently employed in works of manual labour. A friend, 
having seen the young man so occupied, expressed his surprise at 



118 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Witticisms are often attributed to the wrong 
people. It was Lord Chesterfield, not Sheridan, who 
said, on occasion of a certain marriage, that " No- 
body's son had married Everybody's daughter." 

Lord Chesterfield remarked of two persons danc- 
ing a minuet, that " they looked as if they were hired 
to do it, and were doubtful of being paid." 

I once observed to a Scotch lady, " how de- 
sirable it was in any danger to have presence of 
mind.'" "I had rather," she rejoined, "have ab- 
sence of body." 



The mechant Lord Lyttelton used to play all sorts 
of tricks in his boyhood. For instance, when he 
knew that the larder at Hagley happened to be ill 
supplied, he would invite, in his father's name, a 
large party to dinner ; and, as the carriages drove up 
the avenue, the old lord (concealing his vexation as 
much as possible) would stand bowing in the hall, to 
welcome his unwelcome guests. 

the circumstance to Paley, who replied, " Practice, practice is every- 
thing." 

Of the card-playing Curate of G. and his wife, he used to say 
that " they made much more by whist than by the curacy." — Ei>. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 119 

There is at Hauler a written account of the 
mediant Lord Lyttelton's death, which was read to 
me while on a visit there. The statement, as far 
as I recollect, runs thus. — One night, when he was 
in bed, a white bird, with a voice like a woman's, — ■ 
or else, a female figure with a bird on her hand, — 
appeared to him, and told him that he must die 
at a particular hour on a particular night. He re- 
lated the circumstance to some of his friends, who 
encouraged him in treating it as a delusion. The 
fatal night arrived. He was then at a house (Pitt 
Place) near Epsom ; and had appointed to meet 
a party on the downs next morning. His friends, 
without his knowledge, had put back the clock. 
" I shall cheat the ghost yet,' ! he said. On getting 
into bed, he sent his servant down stairs for a spoon, 
having to take some medicine. "When the servant 
returned, Lord Lyttelton was a corpse.* 



* In the ;; Corrections and Additions." p. 36, to Nash's History 
of Worcestershire, is an account of Lord Lyttelton's vision and 

death, more detailed than the above, but not materially different 
—Ed. 

Of Lord Lyttelton's ghost appearing to Miles Peter Andrews 
(an anecdote quite as notorious as that above) the following account 
was given by Andrews himself to his most intimate friend, Mr, 



120 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Frequently, when doubtful how to act in matters 
of importance, I have received more useful advice 
from women than from men. Women have the un- 
derstanding of the heart ; which is better than that of 
the head. 



As I was walking home one day from my father's 
bank, I observed a great crowd of people streaming 
into a chapel in the City Road. I followed them ; 
and saw laid out, upon a table, the dead body of a 
clergyman in full canonicals. It was the corpse of 
John Wesley; and the crowd moved slowly and 

Morton the dramatist, by whom it was told to me. "I was at Kich- 
mond : and I had not been long in bed, when I saw Lord Lyttelton 
standing at the foot of it. I felt no surprise, because he was in the 
habit of coming to me at all hours without previous announcement. 
I spoke to him ; but he did not answer. Supposing that he intended, 
as usual, to play me some trick, I stooped out of bed, and taking up 
one of my slippers, I threw it at him. He vanished. Next morning, 
I inquired of the people of the house when Lord Lyttelton had 
arrived, and where he was? They declared that he had not arrived. 
He died at the very moment I saw him." A version of this ghost- 
story, too, is given by Nash (ubi supra), who states that Andrews 
addressed the ghost, and that "the ghost, shaking his head, said, 
' It is all over with me.'" But Mr. Morton assured me that he re- 
lated the story exactly as he had had it from Andrews, whose convic- 
n that he had seen a real spectre was proof against all arguments. 
—Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL BOGERS. 121 

silently round and round the table, to take a last 
look at that most venerable man.* 



Dr. Priestley went to Paris in company with Lord 
Shelburne ;f and he assured me that all the eminent 
Frenchmen whom he met there, were entirely des- 
titute of any religious belief, — sheer atheists. At 
a large dinner-party he asked his next neighbour, 
" Who is that gentleman ?" The answer was, " It 

is ; and he believes no more than you and I do" 

— Marmontel used to read some of his unpublished 
works to parties of his friends, on certain days, at 
his own house. Priestley, who attended a few of 

* " At the desire of many of his friends, his body was carried 
into the chapel the day preceding the interment, and there lay in a 
kind of state becoming the person, dressed in his clerical habit, 
with gown, cassock, and band; the old clerical cap on his head, a 
Bible in one hand, and a white handkerchief in the other. The 
face was placid, and the expression which death had fixed upon his 
venerable features was that of a serene and heavenly smile. The 
crowds who flocked to see him were so great, that it was thought 
prudent, for fear of accidents, to accelerate the funeral, and perform 
it between five and six in the morning," &c. South ey's Life of 
Wesley, ii. 562, ed. 1820. Wesley died 2d March 1791.— Ed. 

f Afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, — to whom, nominally, 
Priestley acted as librarian, but really as his literary companion. 
It was in 1774 that they made a tour to the continent.— Ed. 



122 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

those readings, declared that Marmontel occasionally 
gesticulated with such violence, that it was necessary 
to keep out of the reach of his arms for fear of being 
knocked down. 

I was intimately acquainted with Dr. Priestley ; 
and a more amiable man never lived; he was all 
gentleness, kindness, and humility. He was once 
dining with me, when some one asked him (rather 
rudely) " how many books he had published ?" He 
replied, "Many more, sir, than I should like to 
read." Before going to America, he paid me a 
visit, passing a night at my house. He left Eng- 
land chiefly in compliance with the wishes of his 
wife. 



When Home Tooke was at school, the boys asked 
him " what his father was ?" Tooke answered, " A 
Turkey merchant." (He was a poulterer.) 

He once said to his brother,* a pompous man, 

* In repeating this anecdote, Mr. Rogers sometimes substituted 
"cousin" for "brother." — Tooke had two brothers. 1. Benjamin 
Tooke, who settled at Brentford as a market-gardener, in which line 
he became eminent, and acquired considerable wealth. 2. Thomas 
Tooke, who was originally a fishmonger, and afterwards a poulterer, 
— a man, it is said, of strong intellect, but certainly careless and 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 123 

"You and I have reversed the natural course of 
things : you have risen by your gravity ; I have 
sunk by my levity." 

To Judge Ashhurst's remark, that the law was 
open to all, both to the rich and to the poor, Tooke 
replied, " So is the London Tavern." 

He said that Hume wrote his History as witches 
say their prayers — backwards. 

Tooke told me that in his early days a friend 
gave him a letter of introduction to D'Alembert at 
Paris. Dressed a-la-mode, he presented the letter, 
and was very courteously received by D'Alembert, 
who talked to him about operas, comedies, and sup- 
pers, &c. Tooke had expected conversation on very 
different topics, and was greatly disappointed. When 
he took leave, he was followed by a gentleman in a 
plain suit, who had been in the room during his 
interview with D'Alembert, and who had perceived 
his chagrin. " D'Alembert," said the gentleman, 
"supposed from your gay apparel that you were 
merely a petit maitre" The gentleman was David 
Hume. On his next visit to D'Alembert, Tooke's 

extravagant ; and who ended his career in one of the almshouses 
belonging to the Fishmongers' Company. — Ed. 



124 KECOLLECTIONS OE THE 

dress was altogether different ; and so was the con- 
versation.* 

Tooke went to Italy as tutor to a young man of 
fortune,f who was subject to fits of insanity, and 
who consequently would sometimes occasion much 
alarm at inns during the middle of the night. — While 
residing at Genoa, they formed an acquaintance with 
an Italian family of distinction, by whom they were 
introduced to the best society of the place. Tooke 
attached himself to a lady of great beauty, becoming 
her cavalier servente, and attending her every where. 
After some weeks, at a large evening-party ^ he was 
astonished to find that the lady would not speak to 
him, and that the rest of the company avoided con- 
versation w 7 ith him. " Now," said Tooke, " what do 
you imagine was the cause of this ? Why, they had 
discovered that I was a Protestant clergyman ! But 

* Tooke spent considerably more than a year at Paris, while 
acting as travelling-tutor to young Elwes (son of the miser) ; and he 
afterwards paid two short visits to that capital in company with 
young Taylor (see next note). It was, I apprehend, on the first of 
these occasions that his introduction to D'Alembert took place. He 
was in full orders before he ever went to the Continent; but he 
always laid aside the clerical dress at Dover. — Ed. 

f The son of a Mr. Taylor, who resided within a few miles of 
Brentford. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL BOGEHS. 125 

I was resolved not to be brow-beaten; and I made 
myself so agreeable, that, before the party broke up, 
we were all again on the very best terms ; some of 
them even waited on me home, with music, in a sort 
of triumph !"* 

Soon after Tooke had left Genoa, he heard that 
another traveller, who was following the same route, 
had been assassinated. This unfortunate traveller 
was mistaken for Tooke, on whom, in consequence 
of his intrigue with the lady at Genoa, the blow had 
been intended to fall. 

I have been present when one of Tooke's daugh- 
ters was reading Greekf to him with great facility. 
He had made her learn that language without using 
a grammar, — only a dictionary. 

I paid five guineas (in conjunction with Bod- 
dington) for a loge at Tooke's trial. — It was the 
custom in those days (and perhaps is so still) to 
place bunches of strong-smelling plants of different 
sorts at the bar where the criminal was to sit (I sup- 

* One of those letters, in which Wilkes publicly addressed 
Home Tooke, has the following passage ; " Will you call an Italian 
gentleman now in town, your confidant during your whole residence 
at Genoa, to testify the morality of your conduct in Italy ?" 

•(■ Latin, I suspect.— Ed. 



326 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

pose, to purify the air from the contagion of his 
presence !). This was done at Tooke's trial ; but, as 
soon as he was brought in, he indignantly swept them 
away with his handkerchief. The trial lasted six 
days. Erskine (than whom nobody had ever more 
power over a jury, — he would frequently address 
them as " his little twelvers") defended Tooke most 
admirably : nay, he showed himself not only a great 
orator, but a great actor ; for, on the fifth day, when 
the Attorney-General, Eldon, was addressing the 
jury, and was using a line of argument which Erskine 
had not expected and could not reply to (the plead- 
ing for the prisoner being closed), I well remember 
how Erskine the whole time kept turning towards 
the jury, and by a series of significant looks, shrugs, 
and shakings of his head, did all he could to destroy 
the effect of what the Attorney-General was saying. 
— After a very long speech, Eldon, with the perspi- 
ration streaming down his face, came into the room 
where the Lord Mayor was sitting, and exclaimed, 
" Mr. Tooke says that he should like to send Mr. 
Pitt to Botany Bay ; but it would be more merciful 
to make him Attorney- General." — When Eldon was 
told that the mob had taken away the horses from 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 127 

Erskine's carriage, and drawn him home in triumph 
to Sergeants' Inn, he asked <e If they^ had ever re- 
turned them ?" 

At the conclusion of the trial, a daughter of one of 
the jurymen was anxious to be introduced to Tooke ; 
who, shaking her by the hand, said very prettily, 
" I must call you sister, for you are the daughter 
of one of those to whom I owe my life." — If Tooke 
had been convicted, there is no doubt that he would 
have been hanged. We lived then under a reign of 
terror. 

One night, after dining with him at Cline's (the 
surgeon), I accompanied Tooke to Brandenburgh 
House (the Margravine of Anspach's) to see a pri- 
vate play. During the performance, a person be- 
hind us said, " There's that rascal, Home Tooke." 
The words were uttered quite distinctly ; and Tooke 
was so offended, that he immediately withdrew. I 
went home with him to his house on the Common, 
and slept there, after sitting up very late to listen to 
his delightful talk. 

I often dined with Tooke at Wimbledon ; and 
always found him most pleasant and most witty. 
There his friends would drop in upon him without 



128 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

any invitation : Colonel Bosville would come fre- 
quently, bringing with him a dinner, from London, 
— -fish, &c. — Tooke latterly used to expect two or 
three of his most intimate friends to dine with him 
every Sunday ; and I once offended him a good deal 
by not joining his Sunday dinner-parties for several 
weeks. 

Burdett was, of course, a great deal with Tooke. 
In little things, Burdett w 7 as a very inconsiderate 
person. One forenoon, when Tooke was extremely 
unwell, and a friend had sent him some fine hot- 
house grapes, Burdett, happening to call in, ate up 
every one of them. 

Tooke was such a passionate admirer of Milton's 
prose works, that, as he assured me, he had tran- 
scribed them all in his youth. 

For my own part, I like Harris's writings much. 
But Tooke thought meanly of them : he would say, 
" Lord Malmesbury is as great a fool as his father.' 9 

He used to observe, that " though the books 
which you have lately read may make no strong im- 
pression on you, they 'nevertheless improve your 
mind; just as food, though we forget what it was 
after we have eaten it, gives strength to the body." 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 129 

O, the fallibility of medical people ! Both Pear- 
son and Cline, on one occasion, informed Tooke that 
he could not possibly survive beyond a single day : 
and— he lived years!* — Let me mention here what 
was told to me by a lady at Clifton . " In my girl- 
hood/' she said, "I had a very severe illness, during 
w T hich I heard Dr. Turton declare to my mother, in 
the next room, that / could not live. I immediately 
called out, ' But I will live, Dr. Turton! 5 and here 
I am, now sixty years old." 



* In a note on Boswell's Life of Johnson (p. 562, ed. 1848), 
relative to Lord Mayor Beckford's famous speech (or rather, re- 
joinder) to the king in 1770, Mr. Croker observes; "Mr. Bosville's 
manuscript note on this passage says, l that the monument records, 
not the words of Beckford, but what was prepared for him by John 
Home Tooke, as agreed on at a dinner at Mr. George Bellas's in 
Doctors' Commons.' This, I think, is also stated in a manuscript 
note in the Museum copy; but Mr. Gifford says, ' he never uttered 
one syllable of the speech.' {Ben Jonson, i. 481.) Perhaps he said 
something which was afterwards put into its present shape by Home 
Tooke." — In Stephens's Memoirs of Home Tooke (vol. i. 155-7) 
we have the following account. " This answer [of the king] had 
been, of course, anticipated, and Mr. Home, who was determined 
to give celebrity to the mayoralty of his friend, Mr. Beckford, at 
the same time that he supported the common cause, had suggested 
the idea of a reply to the sovereign ; a measure hitherto unexampled 
in our history." Stephens then proceeds to say that the Lord Mayor 
"expressed himself nearly as follows," &c; and presently adds, 



130 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Hoole, the son of the translator of Ariosto, wrote 
a poem entitled The Curate ,* which is by no means 
bad. I knew him when he was a private tutor* 



What strange meetings sometimes occur ! Rich- 
ard Sharp, when a young man, was making a tour 
in Scotland with a friend. They arrived one night 
at Glencoe^ and could get no lodgings at the inn ; 

a This, as Mr. Home lately acknowledged to me, was his composi- 
tion." — I now quote the words of Mr. Maltby (see notice prefixed 
to the Porsoniana in this volume). " I was dining at Guildhall in 
1790, and sitting next to Dr. C. Burney, when he assured me that 
Beckford did not utter one syllable of the speech, — that it was 
wholly the invention of Home Tooke. Being very intimate with 
Tooke, I lost no time in questioning him on the subject. 'What 
Burney states,' he said, 'is true. I saw Beckford just after he came 
from St. James's. I asked him what he had said to the king ; and 
he replied, that he had been so confused, he scarcely knew what he 
had said. ' But,' cried I, ' your speech must be sent to the papers ; 
I'll write it for you.' I did so immediately, and it was printed 
forthwith.' " 

These various statements enable us to arrive at the exact truth; 
viz. that Tooke suggested to Beckford (if he did not write them 
down) the heads of a rejoinder to the king's reply,— that Beckford, 
losing his presence of mind, made little or no use of them, — and 
that the famous speech (or rejoinder) which is engraved on the 
pedestal of Beckford's statue in Guildhall, was the elaborate com- 
position of Home Tooke. — Ed. 

* Edward, or the Curate; by the Rev. Samuel Hoole, 1787, 4to. 
His Poems were collected in two vols., 1790. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 131 

"but they were told by the landlord that there lived 
in the neighbourhood a " laird" who was always 
ready to show kindness to strangers, and who would 
doubtless receive them into his house. Thither they 
went, and were treated with the greatest hospitality. 
In the course of conversation, the "laird" mentioned 
Newfoundland as a place familiar to him. " Have 
you been there ?" asked Sharp. " Yes," he replied, 
" I spent some time there, when I was in the army ;" 
and he went on to say that, while there, he enjoyed 
the society of the dearest friend he had ever had, a 
gentleman named Sharp. "Sir, I am the son of that 
very gentleman." The " laird" threw his arms round 
Sharp's neck, and embraced him with a flood of 
tears. 

Sharp's little volume of Letters and Essays is 
hardly equal to his reputation. He had given great 
attention to metaphysics, and intended to publish a 
work on that subject, the result of much thought and 
reading. One day, as we were walking together near 
Ulswater, I put some metaphysical question to him, 
when he stopped me short at once by saying, " There 
are only two men* in England with whom I ever 
* Meaning, I believe, Mackintosh and Bobus Smith.— Ed, 



132 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

talk on metaphysics." This was not very flattering 
to me ; and it so offended my sister, that she said I 
ought immediately to have ordered a postchaise, and 
left him there. 



I have always understood that the oration of 
Pericles in Smith's Thucydides was translated by 
Lord Chatham. 



Vernon was the person who invented the story 
about the lady being pulverised in India by a coup 
de soleil : — when he was dining there with a Hindoo, 
one of his host's wives was suddenly reduced to 
ashes ; upon which, the Hindoo rang the bell, and 
said to the attendant who answered it, " Bring fresh 
glasses, and sweep up your mistress." 

Another of his stories was this. He happened 
to be shooting hyenas near Carthage, when he stum- 
bled, and fell down an abyss of many fathoms' depth. 
He was surprised, however, to find himself unhurt ; 
for he lighted as if on a feather-bed* Presently he 
perceived that he was gently moved upwards ; and, 
having by degrees reached the mouth of the abyss, 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 



133 



lie again stood safe on terra fir ma. He had fallen 
upon an immense mass of bats, which, disturbed from 
their slumbers, had risen out of the abyss and brought 
him up with them. 



I knew Joseph TTarton well. "When Matthias 
attacked him in The Pursuits of Literature for re- 
printing some loose things* in his edition of Pope, 
Joseph wrote a letter to me. in which he called Mat- 
thias " his pious critic/' — rather an odd expression 
to come from a clergyman. — He certainly ought not 
to have given that letter of Lord Cobham.t 

I never saw Thomas TTarton, I once called at 
the house of Robinson the bookseller for Dr. Kippis, 
who used to introduce me to many literary parties, 
and who that evening was to take me to the Society 
of Antiquaries. He said, " Tom TTarton is up 
stairs." How I now wish that I had gone up and 

* The Imitation of the Second Satire of the First Book of Horace, 
and the chapter of " The Double Mistress.' in the Memoirs ofScrib- 
lerus : Matthias also objected to " a few trumpery, vulvar copies of 
verses which disgrace the pages."— Ed. 

t See J. Warton's Life of Pope, p. li The letter had been 
previously printed,— in the dullest of all biographies, Billhead's 
Life of Pope, p. 276. — Ed. 



134 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

seen him ! His little poem, The Suicide, is a favour- 
ite of mine. — Nor did I ever see Gibbon, or Cowper, 
or Horace Walpole : and it is truly provoking to 
reflect that I might have seen them ! 



There is no doubt that Matthias wrote The Pur- 
suits of Literature ; and a dull poem it is, though 
the notes are rather piquant, 

Gilbert Wakefield used to say, he was certain 
that Rennell and Glynn assisted Matthias in it ; and 
Wakefield was well acquainted with all the three. 

Steevens once said to Matthias, " Well, sir, since 
you deny the authorship of The Pursuits of Literature, 
I need have no hesitation in declaring to you that 
the person who wrote it is a liar and a blackguard." 

In one of the notes was a statement that Beloe 
had received help from Porson in translating Al- 
ciphron. Porson accordingly went to Beloe, and 
said, " As you know that I did not help you, pray, 
write to Matthias and desire him to alter that note." 
In a subsequent edition the note was altered. 

One day I asked Matthias if he wrote The Pur- 
suits of Literature; and he answered, " My dear 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 135 

friend, can you suppose that I am the author of that 
poem, when there is no mention made in it of your- 
self?" Some time after, I happened to call on Lord 
Besborough, who told me, that, as he was illustrating 
The Pursuits of Literature with portraits, he wanted 
to get one of me. "Why," exclaimed I, (l there is 
no mention in it of me /" He then turned to the 
note where I am spoken of as the banker who 
" dreams on Parnassus."* 



What popularity Cowper's Task enjoyed ! John- 
son, the publisher, told me that, in consequence of 
the great number of copies which had been sold, he 
made a handsome present to the author. 

In order to attain general popularity, a poem must 
have (what it is creditable to our countrymen that 
they look for) a strong religious tendency, and must 

* -'Let me present a short passage from a Letter to Mr. Pitt 
on the occasion of the Triple Assessment. 'Things, sir, are now- 
changed. Time was, when bankers were as stupid as their guineas 
could make them ; they were neither orators, nor painters, nor poets. 
But now Mr. Dent has a speech and a bitch at your service; Sir 
Robert has his pencil and canvas ; and Mr. Rogers dreams on Par- 
nassus; and, if I am rightly informed, there is a great demand 
among his brethren for the Pleasures of Memory.' " P. 360, ed. 
1808.-— Ed, 



136 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

treat of subjects which require no previous know- 
ledge in the readers. Cowper's poems are of that 
description. 

Here are two fine lines in Cowper's Task;* 

" Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much ; 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." 

Sometimes in his rhymed poetry the verses run with 
all the ease of prose : for instance, — 

" The path of sorrow, and that path alone, 
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown." j 



Cumberland was a most agreeable companion, and 
a very entertaining converser. His theatrical anec- 
dotes were related with infinite spirit and humour : 
his description of Mrs. Siddons coming off the stage 
in the full flush of triumph, and walking up to the 
mirror in the green-room to survey herself, was ad- 
mirable. He said that the three finest pieces of 
acting which he had ever witnessed, w T ere Garrick's 
Lear, Henderson's FalstafF, and Cooke's Iago. 

* Book vi. — Ed. 

f An Epistle to an afflicted Protestant Lady in France. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 137 

When Cumberland was composing any work, he 
never shut himself up in his study : he always wrote 
in the room where his family sat, and did not feel the 
least disturbed by the noise of his children at play 
beside him.* 

Lord Holland and Lord Lansdowne having ex- 
pressed a wish to be introduced to Cumberland, I 
invited all the three to dine with me. It happened, 
however, that the two lords paid little or no atten- 
tion to Cumberland (though he said several very 
good things), — scarcely speaking to him the whole 
time : something had occurred in the House which 
occupied all their thoughts ; and they retired to a 
window, and discussed it. 



Mitford, the historian of Greece, possessed, be- 
sides his learning, a wonderful variety of accomplish- 
ments. I always felt the highest respect for him. 
When, not long before his death, I used to meet him 
in the street, bent almost double,, and carrying a long 
staff in his hand, he reminded me of a venerable 
pilgrim just come from Jerusalem. — His account 

* Compare Cumberland's Memoirs, i. 264, ii. 204.— Ed. 



138 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

of the Homeric age, — of the Sicilian cities, — and 
several other parts of his History, are very pleasing. 



Lane made a large fortune by the immense quan- 
tity of trashy novels which he sent forth from his 
Minerva-press. I perfectly well remember the splen- 
did carriage in which he used to ride, and his foot- 
men with their cockades and gold-headed canes. 

Now-a-days, as soon as a novel has had its run, 
and is beginning to be forgotten, out comes an edi- 
tion of it as a " standard novel !" 



One afternoon, at court, I was standing beside 
two intimate acquaintances of mine, an old nobleman 
and a middle-aged lady of rank, when the former 
remarked to the latter that he thought a certain 
young lady near us was uncommonly beautiful. The 
middle-aged lady replied, " I cannot see any parti- 
cular beauty in her." — " Ah, madam/' he rejoined, 
" to us old men youth always appears beautiful I" 
(a speech with which Wordsworth, when I repeated 
it to him, was greatly struck). — The fact is, till we 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 139 

are about to leave the world, we do not perceive how 
much it contains to excite our interest and admira- 
tion : the sunsets appear to me far lovelier now than 
they were in other years ; and the bee upon the 
flower is now an object of curiosity to me. which it 
was not in my early days. 



With the exception of some good lines, such 
as,— 

iQ Hell in his heart, and Tyburn in his face/' * 

Churchill's poetry is, to my thinking, but mediocre ; 
and for such poetry I have little toleration ; though 
perhaps, when I recollect my own writings, I ought 
not to make the remark. 

I am not sure that I do not prefer Wolcot (Pe- 
ter Pindar) to Churchill. — Wolcot's Gipsy : \ is very 
neat. 

[" A wandering gipsy, sirs, am I. 

From Norwood, where we oft complain, 
With many a tear and many a sigh. 
Of blustering winds and rushing rain. 

* Not inserted in TTolcot's Poet, Works, 5 vols. — Ed, 
f The Author. — Ed, 



UO KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

No costly rooms or gay attire 
Within our humble shed appear; 
No beds of down, or blazing fire, 
At night our shivering limbs to cheer. 

Alas, no friend comes near our cot ! 
The redbreasts only find the way, 
Who give their all, a simple note, 
At peep of morn and parting day. 

But fortunes here I come to tell, — 
Then yield me, gentle sir, your hand : — 
Within these lines what thousands dwell, — 
And, bless me, what a heap of land ! 

It surely, sir, must pleasing be 
To hold such wealth in every line : 
Try, pray, now try, if you can see 
A little treasure lodg'd in mine."] 

And there can hardly be a better line of its kind than 
this, — ■ 

" Kill half a cow, and turn the rest to grass."* 



In company with my sister, I paid a visit to 
Gilbert Wakefield when he was in Dorchester Gaol. 

* Complimentary Epistle to James Boswell, Esq. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGEKS. 141 

His confinement was made as pleasant to him as 
possible ; for he had nearly an acre of ground to walk 
about in. But, still, the sentence passed upon him 
was infamous : what rulers we had in those days ! 

Wakefield gave Beloe some assistance in translat- 
ing Aulus Gellius. 



At a splendid party given by Lord Hampden to 
the Prince of Wales, &c, I saw Lady Hamilton go 
through all those " attitudes" which have been en- 
graved ; and her performance was very beautiful in- 
deed. Her husband, Sir William, was present. 

Lord Nelson was a remarkably kind-hearted man. 
I have seen him spin a teetotum with his one hand, 
a whole evening, for the amusement of some children. 
I heard him once during dinner utter many bitter 
complaints (which Lady Hamilton vainly attempted 
to check) of the way he had been treated at court 
that forenoon : the Queen had not condescended to 
take the slightest notice of him. In truth, Nelson 
was hated at court ; they were jealous of his fame. 

There was something very charming in Lady 
Hamilton's openness of manner. She showed me the 



142 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

neckcloth which Nelson had on when he died: of 
course, I could not help looking at it with extreme 
interest ; and she threw her arms round my neck and 
kissed me. — She was latterly in great want; and 
Lord Stowell never rested till he procured for her a 
small pension from government. 



Parson Este* was well acquainted with Mrs. 
Robinson (the once-celebrated Perdita), and said 
that Fox had the greatest difficulty in persuading the 
Prince of Wales to lend her some assistance when, 
towards the close of life, she was in very straitened 
circumstances. Este saw her funeral, which was at- 
tended by a single mourning coach, f 



A person once asserted that in a particular coun- 

* See pp. 58, 59. 

f Poor Perdita had some poetic talent : and it was acknow- 
ledged by Coleridge, whose lines to her, "As late on Skiddaw's 
mount I lay supine," &c, are not to be found in the recent col- 
lections of his poems. See, at p. xlviii. of the Tributary Poems 
prefixed to Mrs. Robinson's Poetical Works, 3 vols., "A Stranger 
Minstrel. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq., written a few weeks before her 
deaths and dated " Nov. 1800."— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 143 

try the bees were as large as sheep. He was asked 
" How big, then, are the hives ?" — " Oh/' he replied, 
" the usual size/' 



I knew Jane Duchess of Gordon intimately, and 
many pleasant hours have I passed in her society. 
She used to say, " I have been acquainted with 
David Hume and William Pitt, and therefore I am 
not afraid to converse with any body," 

The Duchess told the following anecdote to Lord 
Stowell, who told it to Lord Dunmore, who told it 
to me, " The son of Lord Cornwallis [Lord Brome] 
fell in love with my daughter Louisa : and she liked 
him much. They were to be married; but the in- 
tended match was broken off by Lord C, whose 
only objection to it sprung from his belief that there 
was madness in my husband's family. Upon this I 
contrived to have a tete-a-tete with Lord C, and 
said to him, ' I know your reason for disapproving 
of your son's marriage with my daughter : now, I 
will tell you one thing plainly, — there is not a drop 
of the Gordon blood in Louisa's body,' With this 
statement Lord C. was quite satisfied, and the mar- 



Ui RECOLLECTIONS OE THE 

riage took place." The Duchess prided herself 
greatly on the success of this manoeuvre, though it 
had forced her to slander her own character so 
cruelly and so unjustly ! In fact, manoeuvring was 
her delight. 



One morning I was about to mount my horse to 
ride into London to the banking-house, when, to 
my astonishment, I read in the newspapers that a 
summons had been issued to bring me before the 
Privy-Gouncil. I immediately proceeded to Down- 
ing Street, and asked to see Mr. Dundas. I was 
admitted ; and I told him that I had come to inquire 
the cause of the summons which I had seen an- 
nounced in the newspapers. He said, " Have you a 
carriage here ?" I replied, "A hackney-coach." In- 
to it we got ; and there w T as I sitting familiarly with 
Dundas, whom I had never before set eyes on. We 
drove to the Home-Office ; and I learned that I had 
been summoned to give evidence in the case of Wil- 
liam Stone, accused of high treason. — Long before 
this, I had met Stone in the Strand, when he told 
me, among other things, that a person had arrived 
here from France to gather the sentiments of the 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 145 

people of England concerning a French invasion ; 
and that he (Stone) would call upon me and read to 
me a paper on that subject. I said, " You will infect 
me with the plague ;" and we parted. In the course 
of a few days he did call with the paper. — - After the 
Government had laid hold of Stone, he mentioned 
his intercourse with me ; and hence my summons. 
When his trial took place, I was examined by the 
Attorney-General, and cross-examined by Erskine. 
For some time before the trial I could scarcely get a 
wink of sleep : the thoughts of my appearance at it 
made me miserable. 

[Extract from The Trial of William Stone, for 
High Treason, at the bar of the Court of King's 
Bench, on Thursday the Twenty -eighth and Friday 
the Twenty-ninth of January 1796, Taken in short- 
hand by Joseph Gurney, 1796. 

" Samuel Rogers, Esq. (sworn,) 
Examined by Mr. Attorney-General. 
Q. You know Mr. William Stone? 
A. Yes. 

Q. Do you know Mr. Hurford Stone ? 
A. I have known him many years. 

L 



146 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Q. Do you recollect having any conversation — 
and if you do, be so good as state to my Lord and the 
Jury, what conversation you had with Mr. "William 
Stone relative to an invasion of this country ? 

A. He met me, I think it was in the month of 
March 1794, in the street; he stopped me to men- 
tion the receipt of a letter from his brother at Paris, 
on the arrival of a gentleman, who wished particu- 
larly to collect the sentiments of the people of this 
country with respect to a French invasion. — Our 
conversation went very little further, for it was in 
the street. 

Q. Do you recollect what you said to him, if 
you said any thing ? 

A. I recollect that I rather declined the conver- 
sation. 

Q. I ask you, not what you declined or did not de- 
cline, but what you said to him, if you said any thing. 

A. I was in a hurry, and I believe all I said was 
to decline the conversation. 

Q. State in what language you did decline that 
conversation. 

A. I said that I had no wish to take any part 
whatever in any political transactions at that time ; 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 147 

it was a time of general alarm, and I wished to sliun 
even the shadow of an imputation, as I knew that 
when the minds of men were agitated, as I thought 
they then were, the most innocent intentions were 
liable to misconstruction. 

Q. Did he inform you who the person was ? 

A. No, he did not ; I only learned that it was a 
gentleman arrived from Paris ; I speak from recol- 
lection. 

Q. Did he inform you what gentleman he was ? 

A. I do not recollect that he did. 

Q,. Did he ever call upon you after you had de- 
clined this conversation ? 

A, He did call upon me a few days after; and 
he read to me a paper, which I understood to be 
written by somebody else, but I cannot say who ; 
and which went to show, as far as I can recollect, 
that the English nation, however they might diifer 
among themselves, would unite to repel an invasion. 

Q. After you had declined a conversation upon 
this subject, from motives of discretion, Mr. Stone 
called upon you and showed you this paper ? 

A. He told me in the street he should call upon 
me. 



148 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Q,. Had you any further conversation with him 
at any time upon this subject ? 

A. He mentioned at that time that he thought 
he should do his duty, if, by stating what he believed 
to be true, he could save the country from an inva- 
sion. 

Q. Did he ever tell you where this gentleman 
went to afterwards ? 

A. I never had any further conversation with 
him upon the subject. 

Q. He never came to consult you about what this 
gentleman was doing any where but in England ? 

A. No ; I believe I never met him again. 

Samuel Rogers, Esq. 
Cross-examined by Mr. Erskine. 

Q. Mr. Stone, meeting you accidentally in the 
street, communicated this to you ? 

A. In the open street. 

Q,. Not with any secrecy ? 

A. By no means. 

Q. And you might have told it me, if I had hap- 
pened to have met you five minutes afterwards ? 

A. Very likely. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGEKS. 149 

Q. Have you had any acquaintance with Mr. 
Stone ? 

A. I have met him frequently for many years. 

Q. What is his character with respect to loyalty 
to his king, and regard to his country ? 

A. I had always an opinion that in that respect 
he was a very well-meaning man." pp. 144-6.] 



I cannot relish Shakespeare's Sonnets. The song 
in As you like it, " Blow, blow, thou winter wind," 
is alone worth them all. 

Do not allow yourself to be imposed upon by the 
authority of great names : there is not a little both 
in Shakespeare and in Milton that is very far from 
good. The famous passage in Hamlet, though it has 
passed into a sort of proverbial expression, is down- 
right nonsense, — ■ 

" a custom 

More honoured in the breach than the observance :"* 

how can a custom be honoured in the breach of it ? 

* Act ii. sc. 4. — "Compare the following line of a play attri- 
buted to Jonson, Eletcher, and Middleton ; 

' He keeps his promise best that breaks with hell/ 

The Widow, act iii. sc. 2." 
Dyce's Remarks on Mr. Collier's and Mr. Knight's editions of 
Shakespeare, p. 210. — Ed. 



150 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

In Milton's description of the lazar-house there 
is a dreadful confusion of metaphor : — - , 

" Sight so deform what heart of rock could long 
Dry-ey'd behold?"* 

I once observed this to Coleridge, who told Words- 
worth that he could not sleep all the next night for 
thinking of it. 

Some speeches in Paradise Lost have as much 
dramatic force as any thing in Shakespeare ; for in- 
stance, — 

" Know ye not, then, said Satan fill'd with scorn, 
Know ye not mel Ye knew me once no mate 
For you, there sitting where ye durst not soar," &c.f 

It is remarkable that no poet before Shakespeare 
ever introduced a person walking in sleep. I believe 
there is no allusion to such a circumstance in any of 
the Greek or Latin poets. — What a play that is ! 

* Par. Lost, b. xi. 494. — In a note on this passage Dunster says 
that the combination of heart of rock and dry-ey'd is from Tibullus, 
lib. i. El i. 63, &c; 

" Flebis ; non tua sunt duro prsecordia ferro 

Vincta, nee in tenero stat tibi corde silex." — Ed. 
f B. iv. 827.— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 151 

was there ever such a ghost ? — " the table's full !" I 
never missed going to see it, when Kernble and Mrs. 
Siddons played Macbeth and Lady Macbeth : their 
noble acting, and Locke's fine music, made it a de- 
lightful treat. 



If you wish to have your works coldly reviewed, 
get your intimate friend to write an article on them. 
I know this by experience. — Ward (Lord Dudley) 
" cut up" my Columbus in The Quarterly : but he 
afterwards repented of it, and apologised to me.* 



I have seen Howard the philanthropist more than 
once : he was a remarkably mild-looking man. His 



* The No. of The Quarterly (see vol. ix. 207) which contained 
the critique in question had just appeared, when Mr. Rogers, who 
had not yet seen it, called on Lord Grosvenor, and found Gifford 
sitting with him. Between Mr. Rogers and Gifford there was little 
cordiality ; but on that occasion they chatted together in a very 
friendly manner. After Mr. Eogers had left the room, Gifford said 
to Lord Grosvenor with a smile, " Do you think he has seen the 
last Quarterly?''' 

Mr. Rogers took his revenge for that critique by frequently re- 
peating the following epigram, which has been erroneously attributed 



152 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

book on prisons is excellently written. People are 
not aware that Dr. Price wrote a portion of it. 



Sir Henry Englefield had a fancy (which some 
greater men have had) that there was about his per- 
son a natural odour of roses and violets. Lady 
Grenville, hearing of this, and loving a joke, ex- 
claimed, one day when Sir Henry was present, 

to Byron, but which, as Mr. Rogers told me, he himself wrote, with 
some little assistance from Richard Sharp; 

" Ward has no heart, they say ; but I deny it ; — 
He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it." 

One day while Mr. Rogers was on bad terms with Ward, 

Lady ■ said to him, "Have you seen Ward lately?" " What 

Ward?" — "Why, our Ward, of course." " Our Ward ! you may 
keep him all to yourself." 

Columbus was first printed in a thin quarto, for private cir- 
culation, 1810. When Ward reviewed it in 1813, as forming a 
portion of Mr. Rogers's collected poems, it had been greatly en- 
larged. 

Another article in The Quarterly gave considerable annoyance 
to Mr. Rogers, — the critique by George Ellis on Byron's Corsair 
and Lara (vol. xi. 428), in which Mr. Rogers's Jacqueline (origin- 
ally appended to Lara) is only mentioned as " the highly refined, 
but somewhat insipid, pastoral tale of Jacqueline." — When Mr. 
Rogers was at Brighton in 1851, Lady Byron told him that her 
husband, on reading Ellis's critique, had said, "The man's a fool. 
Jacqueline is as superior to Lara as Rogers is to me." Who will 
believe that Byron said this sincerely? Yet Jacqueline is undoubt- 
edly a beautiful little poem. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGEKS. 153 

" Bless me, what a smell of violets !" — " Yes/' said 
he with great simplicity ; " it comes from me." 



We have in England the finest series of pic- 
tures and the finest of sculptures in the world, — 
I mean, the Cartoons of Raphael and the Elgin 
Marbles. 

Our National Gallery is superior to any private 
collection of pictures in Italy, — superior, for instance, 
to the Doria and Borghese collections, which contain 
several very indifferent things. 

Perhaps the choicest private collection in this 
country is that at Panshanger (Earl Cowper's) : it is 
small, but admirable ; w 7 hat Raphaels, w 7 hat Andrea 
del Sartos, what Claudes ! 



In former days Cuyp's pictures were compara- 
tively little valued : he was the first artist who 
painted light, and therefore he was not understood. 
Sir William Beechy was at a picture-sale with Wil- 
son, when one of Cuyp's pieces was knocked down 
for a trifling sum. " Well," said Wilson, " the day 



154 RECOLLECTIONS OE THE 

will come when both Cuyp's works and my own will 
bring the prices which they ought to bring." 



Look at this engraving by Marc Antonio after 
Raphael,— Michael treading upon Satan, and note 
its superiority to Guido's picture on the same sub- 
ject. In the latter, the countenance of Michael ex- 
presses triumph alone ; in the former, it expresses 
triumph mingled with pity for a fallen brother- 
angel. 

This Last Supper by Raphael [Marc Antonio's 
engraving] is, I think, in all respects superior to that 
by Lionardo. The apostle on the. right hand of 
Christ strikingly displays his indignation against the 
betrayer of his Lord by grasping the table-knife. 

Never in any picture did I see such a figure as 
this, — I mean, a figure so completely floating on the 
air [the Angel holding the wreath in Marc Antonio's 
engraving, after Raphael, of the martyrdom of St. 
Felicita]. 



Sir Thomas Lawrence used to say, that among 
painters there were three pre-eminent for invention, 






TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 155 

— Giorgione, Rembrandt, and Rubens; and perhaps 
he was right. 



Sir Thomas Lawrence has painted several very 
pleasing pictures of children ; but generally his men 
are effeminate, and his women meretricious. — Of his 
early portraits Sir Joshua Reynolds said, " This 
young man has a great deal of talent ; but there is 
an affectation in his style which he will never entirely 
shake off." 



We have now in England a greater number of 
tolerably good painters than ever existed here to- 
gether at any former period : but, alas, we have no 
Hogarth, and no Reynolds ! 

I must not, however, forget that we have Turner, 
— a man of first-rate genius in his line. There is in 
some of his pictures a grandeur which neither Claude 
nor Poussin could give to theirs. 

Turner thinks that Rubens's landscapes are defi- 
cient in nature. I differ from him. Indeed, there* 
is a proof that he is mistaken ; look at that forest- 

* i.e. on the wall of Mr. Rogers's dining-room. — Ed. 



156 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

scene by Rubens ; the foreground of it is truth 
itself. 

The Art Union is a perfect curse : it buys and 
engraves very inferior pictures, and consequently 
encourages mediocrity of talent; it makes young 
men, who have no genius, abandon the desk and 
counter, and set up for painters. 



The public gave little encouragement to Flaxman 
and Banks, but showered its patronage on tw T o much 
inferior sculptors, Bacon and Chantrey. 

As to Flaxman, the greatest sculptor of his day, 
— the neglect which he experienced is something in- 
conceivable. Canova, who was well acquainted with 
his exquisite illustrations of Dante, &c, could hardly 
believe that a man of such genius was not an object 
of admiration among his countrymen ; and, in allu- 
sion to their insensibility to Flaxman's merits and to 
their patronage of inferior artists, he said to some of 
the English at Rome, " You see with your ears !" 

Chantrey began his career by being a carver in 
wood. The ornaments on that mahogany sideboard, 
and on that stand [in Mr. Rogers's dining-room], 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGEES. 157 

were carved by him. [Subsequently, when a gentle- 
man informed Mr. Rogers that the truth of this last 
statement had been questioned ; he entered into the 
following particulars. — Chan' ey said to me one day, 
ci Do you recollect that, about twenty-five years ago, 
a journeyman came to your house, from the wood- 
carver employed by you and Mr. Hope, to talk about 
these ornaments, and that you gave him a drawing 
to execute them by ?' 5 I replied that I recollected 
it perfectly, u Well," continued Chantrey, " 1 was 
that journeyman."] When he was at Rome in the 
height of his celebrity, he injured himself not a little 
by talking with contempt* of the finest statues of 
antiquity.— Jackson (the painter) told me that he 
and Chantrey went into the studio of Dannecker the 
sculptor, who happened to be from home. There 
was an unfinished bust in the room ; and Chantrey, 
taking up a chisel, proceeded to work upon it. One 
of the assistants immediately rushed forwards, in 
great alarm, to stop him ; but no sooner had Chan- 

* Mr. Rogers, I apprehend, was mistaken on this point. From 
Jones ; s Life of Chantrey, p. 26. it appears that Chantrey did not 
admire those statues so much as xhey are generally admired, and 
therefore was unwilling to give his opinion on them; but that he 
never spoke of them 4 * with contempt' 5 — Ed. 



158 RECOLLECTIONS OE THE 

tiey given a blow on the chisel, than the man ex 
claimed, with a knowing look, " Ha! ha!" — as much 
as to say, " I see that you perfectly understand what 
you are about." — Chantrey practised portrait-paint 
ing both at Sheffield and after he came to London. 
It was in allusion to him that Lawrence said, " A 
broken-down painter will make a very good sculptor." 



Ottley's knowledge of painting was astonishing, 
Showing him a picture which I had just received 
from Italy, I said, " Whose work do you suppose it 
to be ?" After looking at it attentively, he replied, 
" It is the work of Lorenzo di Credi" (by whom I 
already knew that it was painted).— " How," I asked, 
" could you discover it to be from Lorenzo's pencil ? 
have you ever before now seen any of his pieces ?" 
" Never," he answered ; " but I am familiar with 
the description of his style as given by Vasari and 
others." 



I regret that so little of Curran's brilliant talk 
has been preserved. How much of it Tom Moore 
could record, if he would only take the trouble ! 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 159 

I once dined with Curran in the public room of 
the chief inn at Greenwich, when he talked a great 
deal, and, as usual, with considerable exaggeration. 
Speaking of something which he would not do on any 
inducement, he exclaimed vehemently, " I had rather 
be hanged upon twenty gibbets." — " Don't you 
think, sir, that one would be enough for you?" said 
a girl, a stranger, who was sitting at the table next 
to us. I wish you could have seen Curran's face. 
He was absolutely confounded,— struck dumb. 



Very few persons know that the poem called 
Vim and Trafalgar* was written by Canning. He 
composed it (as George Ellis told me) in about two 
days, while he walked up and down the room. In- 
deed, very few persons know that such a poem 
exists. 

After Legge was appointed Bishop of Oxford, he 
had the folly to ask two wits, Canning and Frere, to 
be present at his first sermon. " Well," said he to 
Canning, " how did you like it ?" " Why, I thought 
it rather — short." — "Oh, yes, lam aware that it 

* A short poem printed for Ridgeway, 1806, 4to. — Ed. 



160 RECOLLECTIONS OE THE 

was short; but I was afraid of being tedious." " You 
were tedious," 

A lady having put to Canning the silly question, 
" Why have they made the spaces in the iron gate 
at Spring Gardens* so narrow ?" he replied, " Oh, 
ma'am, because such very fat people used to go 
through" (a reply concerning which Tom Moore 
said, that " the person who does not relish it can 
have no perception of real wit"). 

I once mentioned to Canning the anecdote,-}* 
that, while Gray was at Peter House, Cambridge, 
some young men of the college having learned that 
he had a fire-escape in his rooms, alarmed him in the 
middle of the night by a cry of " fire,"— and that 
presently Gray descended from the window by a 
ladder of ropes, and tumbled into a tub of water, 

* At the end of Spring Garden Passage, which opens into St. 
James's Park. — Ed. 

f Whence this very suspicious version of the anecdote was de- 
rived I cannot learn. In a Ms. note of Cole it is given as follows : 
" One of their tricks was, knowing that Mr. Gray had [having?] a 
dread of fire, had rope-ladders in his chamber; they alarmed him in 
the middle of the night with the cry of fire, in hope of seeing him 
make use of them from his window, in the middle story of the new 
building." Mitford's Gray, i. cviii. It was in consequence of these 
"tricks" that Gray removed from Peter House to Pembroke Hall. 
—Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 161 

which the rogues had placed there ; — -upon which, 
Canning added, that " they hcd made a mistake 
in calling out ' fire,' when they meant to cry 
< water.' " 

Canning said that a man who could talk of liking 
dry champagne would not scruple to say any thing. 



The Duke of York told me that Dr. Cyril Jack- 
son most conscientiously did his duty as tutor to him 
and his brother, the Prince of Wales. " Jackson," 
said the Duke, " used to have a silver pencil-case in 
his hand while we were at our lessons ; and he has 
frequently given us such knocks with it upon our 
foreheads, that the blood followed them." 

I have often heard the Duke relate how he and 
his brother George, when young men, were robbed 
by footpads on Hay Hill.* They had dined that 
day at Devonshire House, had then gone home to lay 
aside their court-dresses, and afterwards proceeded 
to a house of a certain description in the neighbour- 
hood of Berkeley Square. They were returning from 
it in a hackney-coach, late at night, when some foot- 
* Hay Hill, Berkeley Street, leading to Dover Street. — Ed. 
M 



162 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

pads stopped them on Hay Hill, and carried off their 
purses, watches, &c. 

In his earlier days the Duke of York was most 
exact in paying all his debts of honour. One night 
at Brookes's, while he was playing cards, he said to 
Lord Thanet, who was about to go home to bed, 
" Lord Thanet, is our betting still to continue ?" 
" Yes, sir, certainly," was the reply : and next morning 
Lord Thanet found 1500/. left for him at Brookes's 
by the Duke. But gradually he became less parti- 
cular in such matters ; and at last he would quietly 
pocket the winnings of the night from Lord Robert 
Spencer, though he owed Lord Robert about five 
thousand pounds. 

I have several times stayed at Oatlands with the 
Duke and Duchess of York— both of them most 
amiable and agreeable persons. We were generally 
a company of about fifteen ; and our being invited 
to remain there " another day" sometimes depended 
on the ability of our royal host and hostess to raise 
sufficient money for our entertainment. We used 
to have all sorts of ridiculous " fun" as we roamed 
about the grounds. The Duchess kept (besides a 
number of dogs, for which there was a regular burial- 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGEES. 163 

place) a collection of monkeys, each of which had 
its own pole with a house at top. One of the 
visitors (whose name I forget) would single out a 
particular monkey, and play to it on the fiddle with 
such fury and perseverance, that the poor animal, 
half-distracted, would at last take refuge in the arms 
of Lord Alvanley. — Monk Lewis was a great fa- 
vourite at Oatlands. One day after dinner, as the 
Duchess was leaving the room, she whispered some- 
thing into Lewis's ear. He was much affected, his 
eyes filling with tears. We asked what was the 
matter. " Oh," replied Lewis, " the Duchess spoke 
so very kindly to me!" — "My dear fellow," said 
Colonel Armstrong,* "pray don't cry; I daresay 
she didn't mean it." 

I was in the pit of the Opera with Crabbe the 
poet when the Duchess of York beckoned to me, and 
I went into her box. There was no one with her 
except a lady, whom I did not know ; and supposing 
that she was only one of the Duchess's attendants, 
I talked very unguardedly about the Duke of Kent. 
Now, the lady was the Duchess of Gloucester, who 

* Query about this name ? Sometimes, while telling the story, 
Mr. Eogers would say, " I think it was Colonel Armstrong."— Ed. 



164 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

took great offence at what I said, and has never for- 
given me for it. The Duchess of York told me 
afterwards that she sat in perfect misery, expecting 
that, when I had done with the Duke of Kent, I 
should fall upon the Duke of Gloucester. 



In Monk Lewis's writings there is a deal of 
bad taste ; but still he was a man of genius. I'll 
tell you two stories which he was very fond of 
repeating (and which Windham used to like) . The 
first is : 

The Skeleton in the Church-porch. 

Some travellers were supping at an inn in Ger- 
many, and sent for the landlord to give him a glass 
of wine. In the course of conversation the landlord 
remarked that a certain person whom they happened 
to speak of, was as obstinate as the Skeleton in the 
Church-porch. " What is that?" they inquired. 
The landlord said that he alluded to a skeleton 
which it was impossible to keep under ground ; that 
he had twice or thrice assisted in laying it in the 
charnel, but that always, the day after it had been 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 165 

buried, it was found lying in the church-porch. The 
travellers were greatly struck by this account ; and 
they expressed an eager desire to see the refractory 
skeleton. At last, a young serving-woman coming 
into the room, they asked her if she, for a reward, 
would go to the church-porch and bring the skeleton 
to them. She at first refused to do so ; but eventu- 
ally the travellers offered a sum of money which 
she could not resist. Be it particularly observed 
that the young woman was then big with child. 
Well, off she set to the church ; and having found 
the skeleton in its usual place, she brought it to the 
inn on her back, and laid it upon the table before 
the travellers. They had no . sooner looked at it 
than they wished it gone ; and they prevailed on the 
young woman, for another sum of money, to carry it 
again to the church-porch. When she arrived there, 
she set it down ; and turning away, she was pro- 
ceeding quickly along the path which led from the 
church, and which was seen stretching out before 
her in the clear moonlight, when suddenly she felt 
the skeleton leap upon her back. She tried to shake 
it off; but in vain. She then fell on her knees, and 
said her prayers. The skeleton relaxed its hold ; 



166 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

and she again rushed down the path, when, as be- 
fore, the skeleton leapt upon her back. " I will 
never quit you," it said, " till you descend into the 
charnel, and obtain forgiveness for the skeleton that 
lies in the church-porch." She paused a moment; 
then summoning up her courage, she replied that she 
would do so. The skeleton dropped off. Down she 
went into the charnel ; and, after groping about for 
some time, she perceived the pale figure of a lady, 
sitting by a lamp and reading. She advanced to- 
wards the figure, and, kneeling, said, " I ask forgive- 
ness for the skeleton that lies in the church-porch." 
The lady read on without looking at her. Again 
she repeated her supplication, but still the lady read 
on, regardless of it. The young woman then as- 
cended from the charnel, and was running down the 
path when the skeleton once more arrested her pro- 
gress. " I will never quit you," it said, " till you 
obtain forgiveness for the skeleton that lies in the 
church-porch : go again into the charnel, and ask 
it." Again the young woman descended, and, ad- 
vancing to the lady, sunk upon her knees, and cried, 
"I come a second time to ask forgiveness for the 
skeleton that lies in the church-porch. Oh, grant 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 167 

that forgiveness ! the skeleton implores it ! I implore 
it ! the babe that I bear in my womb implores it also /" 
The lady turned her head towards the speaker, gave 
a faint smile, and disappeared. On coming up from 
the charnel, the young woman found the skeleton 
standing, erect in the porch. " I am now here/' it 
said, "not to trouble you, but to thank you: you 
have at length procured me rest in the grave. I was 
betrothed to the lady whom you saw in the charnel ; 
and I basely deserted her for another. I stood at 
the altar, about to be married to my second love, 
when suddenly the lady rushed into the church, and 
having stabbed herself with a dagger, said to me, as 
she was expiring, " You shall never have rest in the 
grave, — no, never, till the babe unborn shall ask for- 
giveness for you ." The skeleton rewarded the good 
offices of the young woman by discovering to her the 
place where a heap of treasure was concealed. 
The second story is : 

Lord HowtKs Rat. 

Tom Sheridan was shooting on the moors in Ire- 
land, and lost his dog. A day or two after, it made 
its appearance, following an Irish labourer. It was 



168 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

restored to Sheridan, who remarked to the labourer 
that " the dog seemed very familiar with him." The 
answer was, " Yes, it follows me, as the rat did Lord 
Howth." An inquiry about this rat drew forth what 
is now to be told. — Lord Howth, having dissipated 
his property, retired in very low spirits to a lonely 
chateau on the sea-coast. One stormy night a vessel 
was seen to go down ; and next morning a raft was 
beheld floating towards the shore. As it approached, 
the bystanders were surprised to find that it was 
guided by a lady, who presently stepped upon the 
beach. She was exquisitely beautiful ; but they 
were unable to discover who or what she was, for she 
spoke in an unknown tongue. Lord Howth was 
struck with great pity for this fair stranger, and 
conducted her to his chateau. There she remained 
a considerable time, when he became violently ena- 
moured of her, and at last asked her to become his 
wife. She (having now learned the English lan- 
guage) thanked him for the honour he had intended 
her ; but declared in the most positive terms that 
she could never be his. She then earnestly advised 
him to marry a certain lady of a neighbouring 
county. He followed her advice ; paid his addresses 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 109 

to the lady, and was accepted. Before the marriage, 
the beautiful stranger took a ribbon from her hair, 
and binding it round the wrist of Lord Howth, said, 
" Your happiness depends on your never parting 
with this ribbon." He assured her that it should 
remain constantly on his wrist. She then disap- 
peared, and was never seen again. The marriage 
took place. The ribbon was a matter of much 
wonder and curiosity to the bride ; and one night, 
while Lord Howth was asleep, she removed it from 
his wrist, and carried it to the fire, that she might 
read the characters inscribed upon it. Accidentally 
she let the flame reach it, and it was consumed. 
Some time after, Lord Howth was giving a grand 
banquet in his hall, when the company were sud- 
denly disturbed by the barking of dogs. This, the 
servants said, was occasioned by a rat which the 
dogs were pursuing. Presently the rat, followed by 
the dogs, entered the hall. It mounted on the table, 
and running up to Lord Howth, stared at him ear- 
nestly with its bright black eyes. He saved its life ; 
and from that moment it never quitted him : wher- 
ever he was, alone or with his friends, there was the 
rat. At last the society of the rat became very dis- 



170 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

agreeable to Lord Howth ; and his brother urged 
him to leave Ireland for a time, that -he might get 
rid of it. He did so, and proceeded to Marseilles, 
accompanied by his brother. They had just arrived 
at that place, and were sitting in the room of an 
hotel, when the door opened, and in came the rat. 
It was dripping wet, and went straight to the fire to 
dry itself. Lord Howth's brother, greatly enraged 
at the intrusion, seized the poker, and dashed out 
its brains, " You have murdered me," cried Lord 
Howth, and instantly expired. 



Howley, the present Archbishop of Canterbury, 
edited and wrote the preface to Russell's Sonnets and 
Poems.* I like Russell's sonnet about Philoctetes, 
which you say Wordsworth admires so much.f 

[" Supposed to be written at Lemnos. 

On this lone isle, whose rugged rocks affright 
The cautious pilot, ten revolving years 
Great Pceas' son, unwonted erst to tears, 

Wept o'er his wound : alike each rolling light 

* First printed at Oxford, 1789, 4to.— Ed. 

f See letter to Rev. A. Dyce in Wordsworth's Memoirs, ii. 280. 
—Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 171 

Of heaven lie watch'd, and blam'd its lingering flight ; 

By day the sea-mew, screaming round his cave, 

Drove slumber from his eyes, the chiding wave 
And savage howlings chas'd his dreams by night. 
Hope still was his : in each low breeze that sigh'd 

Through his rude grot he heard a coming oar, 
In each white cloud a coming sail he spied ; 

Nor seldom listened to the fancied roar 
Of (Eta's torrents, or the hoarser tide 

That parts fam'd Trachis from th' Euboic shore."] 

I like, too, that one which begins " Could, then, 
the babes." 

[" Could, then, the babes from yon unshelter'd cot 

Implore thy passing charity in vain 1 
Too thoughtless youth ! what though thy happier lot 

Insult their life of poverty and pain \ 
What though their Maker doom'd them thus forlorn 

To brook the mockery of the taunting throng, 
Beneath th' oppressor's iron scourge to mourn, 

To mourn, but not to murmur at his wrong] 
Yet when their last late evening shall decline, 

Their evening cheerful, though their day distrest, 
A hope perhaps more heavenly bright than thine, 

A grace by thee unsought and unpossest, 



172 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

A faith more fix'd, a rapture more divine, 
Shall gild their passage to eternal rest.",] 



Grattan's aunt was intimate with Swift's Stella 
(Mrs. Johnson), who would sometimes sleep with her 
in the same bed, and pass the whole night in tears. 
Stella was not handsome. 

At one of Lady Crewe's dinner-parties, Grattan, 
after talking very delightfully for some time, all at 
once seemed disconcerted, and sunk into silence. I 
asked his daughter, who was sitting next to me, the 
reason of this. " Oh," she replied, "he has just 
found out that he has come here in his powdering- 
coat." 

Grattan said that Malone went about, looking, 
through strongly-magnifying spectacles, for pieces of 
straw and bits of broken glass. 

He used to talk with admiration of the French 
translation of Demosthenes by Auger : he thought it 
the best of all translations. 

He declared that the two greatest men of modern 
times were William the Third and Washington. 

" Three persons," said Grattan, " are considered 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGEES. 173 

as having the best claim to the authorship of Junius' s 
Letters, — Gibbon, Hamilton, and Burke. Gibbon is 
out of the question. I do not believe that they were 
Hamilton's ; because a man, who was willing to be 
known as the author of a bad piece, would hardly 
have failed to acknowledge that he had written an 
excellent book. I incline to think that Burke was 
Junius." 

" Burke," observed Grattan, " became at last 
such an enthusiastic admirer of kingly power, that 
he could not have slept comfortably on his pillow, if 
he had not thought that the king had a right to carry 
it off from under his head." 

" Do you ever say your prayers ?" asked Plunkett 
of Grattan. " No, never." — " What, never ! neither 
night nor morning ?" " Never : but I have aspira- 
tions all day and all night long." 

t6 What you have just mentioned," said one of 
Grattan's friends to him, " is a profound secret : 
where could you have heard it?" Grattan replied, 
" Where secrets are kept, — in the street." 

You remember the passage in my Human Life ? — 

" A walk in spring— Grattan, like those with thee 
By the heath-side (who had not envied mel), 



174 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

When the sweet limes, so full of bees in June, 
Led us to meet beneath their boughs at noon ; 
And thou didst say which of the great and wise, 
Could they but hear and at thy bidding rise, 
Thou wouldst call up and question." 

I allude to some lime-trees near Tunbridge Wells. 
Grattan would say to me, " Come, Rogers, let's take 
a walk among the lime-trees, and hear those great 
senators, the bees;" and, while we were listening 
to their buzzing and humming, he w 7 ould exclaim, 
" Now, they are holding a committee," &c. &c. He 
would say, too, " Were I a necromancer, I should 
like to call up Scipio Africanus : he was not so skil- 
ful a captain as Hannibal ; but he was a greater and 
more virtuous man. And I should like to talk to 
Julius Caesar on several points of his history, — on 
one particularly (though I would not press the sub- 
ject, if disagreeable to him); — I should wish to know 
what part he took during Catiline's conspiracy." — 
" Should you like to call up Cleopatra ?" I asked. 
" No," replied Grattan, " not Cleopatra : she would 
tell me nothing but lies ; and her beauty would make 
me sad."* — Grattan was so fond of walking with me, 
* The very reverse of the effect which the beauty of the little 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 175 

that Mrs. Grattan once said to him rather angrily, 
" You'll be taken for Mr. Rogers's shadow." 

" How I should like," said Grattan one day to 
me, st to spend my whole life in a small neat cottage ! 
I could be content with very little ; I should need 
only cold meat, and bread, and beer,— and plenty of 
claret." 

I once said to Grattan, " If you were now only 
twenty years old, and Cooke were about to set sail 
round the world, should you like to accompany him ?" 
He answered, " I have no wish to see such countries 
as he saw : I should like to see Rome, Athens, and 
some parts of Asia ; but little besides." 

He declared that he had rather be shot than go 
up in a balloon. 

Grattan's uncle, Dean Marley, gave the nicest 
little dinners and kept the best company in Dublin : 
his parties were delightful. At that time he had 
about four hundred a year. Afterwards, when he 
succeeded to an estate and was made a Bishop, he 

cottage-girl produced on Wordsworth— " Her beauty made me glad." 
We are Seven. Speaking to me of the poem just cited, Wordsworth 
said, "It is founded on fact. I met a little girl near Goderich 
Castle, who, though some of her brothers and sisters were dead, 
would talk of them in the present tense. I wrote that poem back- 
ward, — that is, I began with the last stanza."— Ed. 



176 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

gave great dinners chiefly to people of rank and 
fashion (foolish men and foolish women) ; and his 
parties lost all their charm. 

He had a good deal of the humour of Swift. 
Once, when the footman was out of the way, he 
ordered the coachman to fetch some water from the 
well. To this the coachman objected, that his busi- 
ness was to drive, not to run on errands. " Well, 
then," said Marley, " bring out the coach and four, 
set the pitcher inside, and drive to the well;" — a ser- 
vice which was several times repeated, to the great 
amusement of the village. 



Places are given away by Government as often 
for the sake of silencing animosity as in the hope of 
assistance from the parties benefited. 



The French Revolution was the greatest event in 
Europe since the irruption of the Goths. 



The most beautiful and magnificent view on the 



TABLE-TALK OE SAMUEL EOGEES. 177 

face of the earth is the prospect of Mont Blanc from 
the Jura Mountains. 



Archibald Hamilton, afterwards Duke of Hamil- 
ton,* (as his daughter, Lady Dunmore, told me) 
advertised for "a Hermit" as an ornament to his 
pleasure-grounds ; and it was stipulated that the said 
Hermit should have his beard shaved but once a 
year, and that only partially. 

A friend, calling on him one forenoon, asked if 
it was true that he kept a young tame tiger. He 
immediately slapped his thighs, and uttered a sort 
of whistle ; and forth crept the long-backed animal 
from under the sofa. The visitor soon retreated. 



Lord Shelburne could say the most provoking 
things, and yet appear quite unconscious of their 
being so. In one of his speeches, alluding to Lord 
Carlisle, he said, " The noble lord has written a 
comedy." " No, a tragedy." f — " Oh, I beg pardon ; 
I thought it ivas a comedy ." 



* Ninth Duke of Hamilton. — Ed. f The Father's Hevenge. — Ed. 

N 



178 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Only look at that sunset ! it is enough to make 
one feel devout, — I was once driving through the 
Park on my way to a dinner-party, when the sun 
was setting so beautifully that I could not resist 
staying to see all that I could see of it ; and so I 
desired the coachman to drive me round and round 
till it was fairly set. Dinner was begun when I 
arrived; but that did not much matter.* 

Once at Thomas Grenville'sf house I was raptu- 
rously admiring a sunset. " Yes," he observed, " it 

is very handsome ;" and some time after, when 

was admiring another sunset, he said, " Why, you are 
as foolish as Rogers." 



When a lady, a friend of mine, was in Italy, she 

* Those who were not acquainted with Mr. Rogers may perhaps 
think that there was some affectation in all this : but assuredly 
there was none. In the passage with which Italy now concludes, 
he says, describing himself, — 

" Nature denied him much ; 
But gave him at his birth what most he values, 
A passionate love for music, sculpture, painting, 
For poetry, the language of the gods, 
For all things here or grand or beautiful, 
A setting sun, a lake among the mountains," &c. — Ed. 
f The Right Honourable T. G.— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 179 

went into a church, and knelt down among the crowd. 
An Italian woman, who was praying at some little 
distance, rose up, came softly to my friend, whispered 
in her ear, " If you continue to flirt with my hus- 
band, I'll be the death of you;" and then, as softly, 
returned to her genuflections. Such things cannot 
happen where there are pews. 



I know few lines finer than the concluding stanza 
of Life* by Mrs. Barbauld, who composed it when 
she was very old ; 

"Life ! we've been long together, 
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather : 
Tis hard to part when friends are dear ; 
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear ; 
Then steal away, give little warning, 
Choose thine own time, 
Say not Good Night, but in some brighter clime 
Bid me Good Morning." 

Sitting with Madame D'Arblay some weeks be- 



* Wordsworth also thought very highly of these lines : see his 
Memoirs, ii. 222.— Ed. 



180 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

fore she died, I said to her, "Do you remember 
those lines of Mrs. Barbauld's Life .which I once 
repeated to you ?" "Remember them !" she replied; 
" I repeat them to myself every night before I go to 
sleep." 

Strangely enough,* in spite of her correct taste, 
Mrs. Barbauld was quite fascinated by Darwin's Bo- 
tanic Garden when it first appeared, and talked of it 
with rapture ; for which I scolded her heartily. 

One day, as she was going to Hampstead in the 
stage-coach, she had a Frenchman for her companion ; 
and entering into conversation with him, she found 
that he was making an excursion to Hampstead for 
the express purpose of seeing the house in the Flask 
Walk where Clarissa Harlowe lodged.-}- What a 
compliment to the genius of Richardson ! 



* It is not so strange, when we recollect that The Botanic Gar- 
den fascinated even Cowper: see his verses to Darwin, written in 
conjunction with Hay ley. — Wordsworth once said to me: "Darwin 
had not an atom of feeling : he was a mere eye-voluptuary. He 
has so many similes all beginning with ' So,' that I used to call The 
Botanic Garden ' so-so poetry.' " — Ed. 

f " The writer of these observations well remembers a French- 
man who paid a visit to Hampstead for the sole purpose of finding 
out the house in the flask-walk where Clarissa lodged, and was sur- 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGKERS. 181 

Bobus Smith* (who could repeat by heart an 
astonishing quantity of Latin prose) used to admire 
greatly the "raptor, largitor"f of Tacitus. I am 
inclined to prefer Sallust's expression, " alieni appe- 
tens, sui profusus."J 

A few days before his death, Bobus said to me, 
" Rogers, however we may doubt on some points, we 
have made up our minds on one, — that Christ was 
sent into the world commissioned by the Almighty 
to instruct mankind." I replied, "Yes; of that I 
am perfectly convinced." 



When I was a lad, I recollect seeing a whole 

prised at the ignorance or indifference of the inhabitants on that 
subject. The flask-walk was to him as much classic ground as the 
rocks of Meillerie to the admirers of Rousseau; and probably, if an 
English traveller were to make similar inquiries in Switzerland, he 
would find that the rocks of Meillerie and the chalets of the Yalais 
suggested no ideas to the inhabitants but such as were connected 
with their dairies and their farms. A constant residence soon de- 
stroys all sensibility to objects of local enthusiasm." Mrs. Bar- 
bauld's Life of Richardson, p. cix. — Ed. 

* i.e. Robert Smith, the elder brother of Sydney, and one of 
the best writers of Latin verse since the days of the ancients. Bo- 
bus was the nickname given to him by his schoolfellows at Eton. 
—Ed. 

f Hist lib. ii. c. 86.— Ed. 

J Bell. Cat, near the beginning. — Ed. 



182 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

cartful of young girls, in dresses of various colours, 
on their way to be executed at Tyburn. They had 
all been condemned, on one indictment, for having 
been concerned in (that is, perhaps, for having been 
spectators of) the burning of some houses during 
Lord George Gordon's riots. It was quite horrible. 
— Greville was present at one of the trials consequent 
on those riots, and heard several boys sentenced, 
to their own excessive amazement, to be hanged. 
" Never," said Greville with great naivete^ " did I 
see boys cry so." 



I once observed to a friend of mine, " Why, you 

and Mr. live like two brothers." He replied, 

" God forbid !" And it must be confessed that most 
of the " misunderstandings" which we hear of, exist 
between brothers and sisters. These " misunder- 
standings" often arise from the eminence acquired 
by some one member of a family, which the others 
cannot endure. 

In my youth, just as I was beginning to be a 
little known, I felt much gratified by an invitation 
to breakfast with Townley, the statue collector ; 
and one night, at home, I mentioned the invitation. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 183 

" You have told us that before/' was the remark. 
In days of old they used to put an obnoxious bro- 
ther into a pit, and sell him to the Ishmaelites. — I 
became very intimate with Townley, who liked me 
because I was so fond of art. I have stayed with 
him for days, both in London and in the country ; 
indeed, I was in his house when he died. 



Sir Thomas Lawrence told me, that when he, in 
his boyhood, had received a prize* from the Society 

* Sometimes, in telling this anecdote, Mr. Rogers would speak 
of young Lawrence's prize as " a medal which he put on," &c. But 
from Williams's Life of Lawrence it appears that the prize adjudged 
to him in 1784 by the Society of Arts (for a drawing in crayons 
after the Transfiguration of Raphael) was the silver palette entirely 
gilt and five guineas. " It was the law of the Society, that a work 
of this description, to compete for the main prize [the gold medal] 
must be performed within one year prior to the date at which it is 
sent to the Society. Mr. Lawrence's drawing was marked as per- 
formed in 1782, and it was not sent to the Society till the year 
1784; and this excluded it, according to the conditions of the 
Society, from being taken into consideration for the higher prize. 
It was considered, however, to possess such very extraordinary 
merit, that the Society was not content with putting the gilt rim to 
the palette, but ordered it to be entirely gilt. Pecuniary rewards 
for works of art had long been abandoned ; and this vote of five 
guineas was a very striking testimony of the opinions of the Society 
in favour of the work." vol. i. 90. — Ed. 



184 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

of Arts, he went with it into the parlour where his 
brothers and sisters were sitting ; but that not one 
of them would take the slightest notice of it ; and 
that he was so mortified by their affected indiffer- 
ence, that he ran up stairs to his own room, and 
burst into tears. 

On coming home late one night, I found Sir 
Thomas Lawrence in the street, hovering about my 
door, and waiting for my return. He immediately 
began the tale of his distress,— telling me that he was 
in pressing want of a large sum of money, and that he 
depended on my assistance, being sure that I would 
not like to see the President of the Royal Academy 
a bankrupt. I replied that I would try what I could 
do for him next morning. Accordingly, I went early 
to Lord Dudley. " As you," I said, " can command 
thousands and thousands of pounds, and have a truly 
feeling heart, I want you to help a friend of mine, — 
not, however, by a gift, but either by a loan, or by 
purchasing some valuable articles which he has to 
sell." Dudley, on learning the particulars, accom- 
panied me to Sir Thomas's house, where we looked 
at several pictures which he wished to dispose of in 
order to meet the present difficulty. Most of them 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 185 

were early pictures of the Italian school, and, though 
valuable, not pleasing perhaps to any except artists. 
Dudley bought one of them (a Raphael, in his first 
style, as it was called, and probably was), giving, I 
believe, more than a thousand guineas for it ; and he 
lent Sir Thomas, on a bond, a very considerable sum 
besides. Xo doubt, if Lawrence had lived, he would 
have repaid Lord Dudley by instalments ; but he 
died soon after, and not a penny was ever paid back. 
This to so very wealthy a man as Dudley was of no 
consequence ; and I dare say he never thought about 
it at all. — Sir Thomas at the time of his death was 
a good deal in my debt ; nor was I ever repaid.- — 
He used to purchase works of art, especially draw- 
ings of the old masters, at immense prices ; he was 
careless in keeping accounts ; and he was very gene- 
rous : hence his difficulties, which were every now 
and then occurring. 



When I mentioned to Mrs. Siddons the anecdote 
of " Lawrence and his prize," she said, " Alas ! after 
7 became celebrated, none of my sisters loved me as 
they did before." 



186 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Mrs. Siddons told me, that one night as she step- 
ped into her carriage to return home, from the thea- 
tre, Sheridan suddenly jumped in after her. " Mr. 
Sheridan," she said, " I trust that you will behave 
with all propriety : if you do not, I shall immediately 
let down the glass, and desire the servant to show 
you out." Sheridan did behave with all propriety : 
" but," continued Mrs. Siddons, " as soon as we had 
reached my house in Marlborough Street, and the 
footman had opened the carriage-door, — only think ! 
the provoking wretch bolted out in the greatest 
haste, and slunk away, as if anxious to escape un- 
seen." 

After she had left the stage, Mrs. Siddons, from 
the want of excitement, was never happy. When I 
was sitting with her of an afternoon, she would say, 
" Oh, dear ! this is the time I used to be thinking 
of going to the theatre : first came the pleasure of 
dressing for my part; and then the pleasure of acting 
it : but that is all over now." 

When a grand public dinner was given to John 
Kemble on his quitting the stage, Mrs. Siddons said 
to me, " Well, perhaps in the next world women will 
be more valued than they are in this." She alluded 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 187 

to the comparatively little sensation which had been 
produced by her own retirement from the boards: 
and doubtless she was a far, far greater performer 
than John Kemble. 

Combe* recollected having seen Mrs. Siddons, 
when a very young woman, standing by the side of 
her father's stage, and knocking a pair of snuffers 
against a candlestick, to imitate the sound of a wind- 
mill, during the representation of some Harlequin- 
piece. 

* See p. 112.— Combe had conceived a violent dislike to Mrs. 
Siddons, — why I know not. In a passage of his best work he stu- 
diously avoids the mention of her name ;— 

" The Drama's children strut and play 

In borrow'd parts, their lives away ; — 

And then they share the oblivious lot ; 

Smith will, like Cibber, be forgot ! 

Cibber with fascinating art 

Could wake the pulses of the heart ; 

But hers is an expiring name, 

And darling Smith's will be the same." 

The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the 
Picturesque, p. 229, third ed. 1813. 
The " darling Smith" was the late Mrs. Bartley. — Mrs. Siddons used 
to say that the public had a sort of pleasure in mortifying their old 
favourites by setting up new idols ; that she herself had been 
three times threatened with an eclipse, — first by means of Miss 
Brunton (afterwards Lady Craven), next by means of Miss Smith, 
and lastly by means of Miss O'Neil: "nevertheless," she added, "I 
am noi yet extinguished." — -Ed. 



188 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

John Kemble was often very amusing when he had 
had a good deal of wine. He and two friends were 
returning to town in an open carriage from the Priory 
(Lord Abercorn's), where they had dined ; and as 
they were waiting for change at a toll-gate, Kemble, 
to the amazement of the toll-keeper, called out in 
the tone of Rolla, "We seek no change; and, least 
of all, such change as he would bring us."* 

When Kemble was living at Lausanne, he used 
to feel rather jealous of Mont Blanc; he disliked 
to hear people always asking, (( How does Mont 
Blanc look this morning ?" 



Sir George Beaumont, f when a young man, was 
introduced at Rome to an old painter, who in his 
youth had known an old painter, who had seen 
Claude and Gaspar Poussin riding out, in a morning, 
on mules, and furnished with palettes, &c, to make 
sketches in the Campagna. 



* Pizarro, act ii. sc. 2 (where it is " as they would bring 

us").— Ed. 

f During his latter years, I have sometimes heard Mr. Rogers 
state that he was himself introduced to the old painter, &c. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 189 

Three Irishmen (I am glad that they were not 
Englishmen) went up Vesuvius. They stopped at 
the hermitage to refresh themselves ; and while they 
were drinking lachrima Christi there, the Emperor 
and Empress of Austria arrived. The three Irish- 
men positively refused to admit them ; but after- 
' wards, on being told that a lady was outside, they 
offered to give up half the apartment. Upon this, 
the attendants of the Emperor (though against his 
wish) speedily cleared the hermitage of the three 
Irishmen, who, in a great passion, proceeded up to 
the crater. As they were coming down again, they 
met the royal personages, whom they abused most 
heartily, calling the Empress a variety of names 
under her bonnet. No notice of all this was ever 
taken by the Emperor : but, the story having got 
wind immediately, the three Irishmen thought it best 
to decamp next morning from Naples, their conduct 
having excited the highest indignation among the 
British who were resident there. — I once told this 
anecdote at Lord Lonsdale's table, when Lord Eldon 
and Lord Castlereagh were present ; and the remark 
of Lord Castlereagh was, " I am sorry to say that it 
is too true." 



190 BECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

The Colosseum in the Regent's Park is a noble 
building, — finer than any thing among the remains 
of ancient architectural art in Italy. It is ridiculous 
to hear Englishmen who have been at Rome talking 
with such rapture of the ancient buildings they have 
seen there : in fact, the old Romans were but indif- 
ferent architects. 



Greorgiana Duchess of Devonshire was not so 
beautiful as she was fascinating : her beauty was not 
that of features, but of expression. Every body 
knows her poem, Mount St. Gothard ; she wrote also 
what is much less known, a novel called The Sylph* 
Gaming was the rage during her day: she indulged 
in it, and was made miserable by her debts. A faro- 
table was kept by Martindale, at which the Duchess 
and other high fashionables used to play. Sheridan 
said that the Duchess and Martindale had agreed 
that whatever they two won from each other should 
be sometimes double, sometimes treble, the sum which 
it was called ; and Sheridan assured me that he had 
handed the Duchess into her carriage when she was 
* 1788. 2 vols.— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 191 

literally sobbing at her losses, — she perhaps having 
lost 1500/., when it was supposed to be only 5001. 

General Fitzpatrick said that the Duke's love 
for her grew quite cool a month after their mar- 
riage ; that she had many sighing swains at her 
feet, — among others, the Prince of Wales, who chose 
to believe that she smiled upon Lord Grey ; and 
hence the hatred which the Prince bore to him. 

The Duke, when walking home from Brookes's 
about day -break (for he did not relish the gaieties at 
Devonshire House) used frequently to pass the stall 
of a cobbler who had already commenced his work. 
As they were the only persons stirring in that quar- 
ter, they always saluted each other. " Good night, 
friend," said the Duke. " Good morning, sir," said 
the cobbler. 

The Duchess was dreadfully hurt at the novel A 
Winter in London ;* it contained various anecdotes 
concerning her, which had been picked up from her 
confidential attendants ; and she thought, of course, 
that the little great world in which she lived was inti- 

* In 3 vols., by T. S. Surr. The Duchess figures in it under 
the name of the Duchess of Belgrave. This novel (which was much 
read at the time) is inferior to any second-rate work of fiction of 
the present day. — Ed. 



]92 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

mately acquainted with all her proceedings. "Never 
read that book, for it has helped to, kill me," were 
her words to a very near relative. 



I introduced Sir Walter Scott to Madame 
D'Arblay, having taken him with me to her house. 
She had not heard that he was lame ; and when he 
limped towards a chair, she said, " Dear me, Sir 
Walter, I hope you have not met with an acci- 
dent ?" He answered, "An accident, madam, nearly 
as old as my birth." 

At the time when Scott and Byron were the two 
lions of London, Hookham Frere observed^ " Great 
poets formerly (Homer and Milton) were blind ; now 
they are lame." 

One forenoon Scott was sitting for his bust to 
Chantrey, who was quite in despair at the dull and 
heavy expression of his countenance. Suddenly, 
Fuller ("Jack Fuller," the then buffoon of the 
House of Commons) was announced by a servant ; 
and, as suddenly, Scott's face was lighted up to 
that pitch of animation which the sculptor desired, 
and which he made all haste to avail himself of. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 193 

After dining at my house. Sir Walter (then Mr.) 
Scott accompanied me to a party given by Lady 
Jersey. AVe met Sheridan there, who put the ques- 
tion to Scott in express terms, i; Pray, Mr. Scott, 
did you, or did you not, write Waverley?" Scott 
replied, " On my honour, I did not." Now, though 
Scott may perhaps be justified for returning an an- 
swer in the negative, I cannot think that he is 
to be excused for strengthening it with. " on my 
honour." 

There is a very pleasing spirit of kindness in 
Scott's Life of Swift and Lives of the Novelists; he 
endeavours to place every body's actions in the most 
favourable light. 

As a story, his Lady of the Lake is delightful.* 
— On the whole, his poetry is too carelessly written 
to suit my taste ; but parts of it are very happy ; 
these lines of Marmion, for instance ; 

i: To seize the moment Marmion tried, 
And whisper'd to the king aside : 
' Oh. let such tears unwonted plead 

* I have heard Wordsworth say that it was one of the most 
charming stories ever invented by a poet. — Ed. 

O 



194 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

For respite short from dubious deed ! 
A child will weep a bramble's smart, 
A maid to see her sparrow part, 
A stripling for a woman's heart : 
But woe awaits a country when 
She sees the tears of bearded men. 
Then, oh, what omen, dark and high, 
When Douglas wets his manly eye V "* 

and the still better passage in the same poem ; 

" woman ! in our hours of ease, 
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please. 
And variable as the shade 
By the light quivering aspen made ; 
When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
A ministering angel thou !"t 



Why there should be evil in the world is indeed 
a mystery. Milton attempts to answer the question ; 
but he has not done it satisfactorily. The three 
acutest men with whom I was ever acquainted, Sir 
James Mackintosh, Mai thus, and Bobus Smith, J were 

* Canto v. xyi. — Ed. f Canto vi. xxx. — Ed. 

J See note, p. 181. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 195 

all agreed that the attributes of the Deity must be 
in some respects limited, else there would be no sin 
and misery.* 



When I lived in the Temple, Mackintosh and 
Richard Sharp used to come to my chambers, and 
stay there for hours, talking metaphysics. One day 
they were so intent on their " first cause," " spirit," 
and " matter," that they were unconscious of my 
having left them, paid a visit, and returned ! I was 
a little angry at this, and, to show my indifference 
about them, I sat down and wrote letters, without 
taking any notice of them. 

Mackintosh told me that he had received in his 
youth comparatively little instruction, — whatever 
learning he possessed he owed to himself. He had a 
prodigious memory, and could repeat by heart more 
of Cicero than you would easily believe. His know- 
ledge of Greek was slender. I never met a man 
with a fuller mind than Mackintosh,— such readiness 
on all subjects, such a talker ! 

* I cannot help remarking, — that men whom the world regards 
as far greater " lights" than the three above mentioned have thought 
very differently on this subject.— Ed. 



196 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

I once travelled with him on the Continent ; yet, 
in spite of his delightful conversation, some how or 
other we did not hit it off well. At Lausanne 
my sister and I went to see Gibbon's house ; and, 
borrowing the last volume of the Decline and Fall, 
we read the concluding passages of it on the very 
spot where they were written. But such an amuse- 
ment was not to Mackintosh's taste : he meanwhile 
was trotting about, and making inquiries concerning 
the salaries of professors, &c. &c. When we were 
leaving Geneva, I could not find my sac-de-nuit, and 
was forced to buy a new one. On stepping into the 
carriage, I saw there, to my surprise, the lost article, 
which Mackintosh had very coolly taken and had 
stuffed with recently-purchased books. 

Mackintosh often said that Herschel's Discourse 
on the Study of Natural Philosophy was undoubtedly 
the finest thing of its kind since the publication of 
Bacon's Novum Organon. 



Lord Ellenborough had infinite wit. When the 
income-tax was imposed, he said that Lord Kenyon 
(who was not very nice in his habits) intended, in con- 
sequence of it, to lay down — his pocket-handkerchief. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 197 

A lawyer one day pleading before him, and using 
several times the expression " my unfortunate client/' 
Lord Ellenborough suddenly interrupted him, — 
"* There, sir, the court is with you." 

Lord Ellenborough was once about to go on the 
circuit, when Lady E. said that she should like to 
accompany him. He replied that he had no objec- 
tions, provided she did not encumber the carriage 
with bandboxes, which were his utter abhorrence. 
They set off. During the first day's journey, Lord 
Ellenborough, happening to stretch his legs, struck 
his feet against something below T the seat. He dis- 
covered that it was a bandbox. His indignation is 
not to be described. Up went the window, and out 
went the bandbox. The coachman stopped ; and 
the footmen, thinking that the bandbox had tumbled 
out of the window by some extraordinary chance, 
were going to pick it up, when Lord Ellenborough 
furiously called out, "Drive on!" The bandbox 
accordingly was left by a ditch-side. Having reached 
the county-town where he was to officiate as judge, 
Lord Ellenborough proceeded to array himself for 
his appearance in the court-house. (t Now," said he, 
" where's my wig, — -where is my wig ?" " My lord," 



198 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

replied his attendant, " it was thrown out of the 
carriage- window. " 



The English highwaymen of former days (indeed, 
the race is now extinct) were remarkably well-bred 
personages, Thomas Grenville,* while travelling with 
Lord Derby ; and Lord Tankerville, while travelling 
with his father ; were attacked by highwaymen : on 
both occasions, six or seven shots were exchanged 
between them and the highwaymen ; and when the 
parties assailed had expended all their ammunition, 
the highwaymen came up to them, and took their 
purses in the politest manner possible. 



Foreigners have more romance in their natures 
than we English. Fuseli, during his later years, 
used to be a very frequent visitor of Lady Guilford, 
at Putney Hill. In the grounds belonging to her 
villa there was a statue of Flora holding a wreath 
of flowers. Fuseli would frequently place in the 
wreath a slip of paper, containing some pretty sen- 

* The Eight Honourable T. G.— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGEES. 199 

timent, or some expressions of kindness, intended 
for Lady Guilford's daughters ; who would take it 
away, and replace it by another of the same kind. 
When one of these ladies told me this, the tears were 
in her eyes. 

The three great curses of Ireland are, Absentee- 
ism, Middle-men, and the Protestant Establishment. 



A man who attempts to read all the new publica- 
tions must often do as a flea does — skip. 



Such is the eagerness of the human mind for ex- 
citement, — for an event, — that people generally have 
a sort of satisfaction in reading the deaths of their 
friends in the newspapers. I don't mean that a man 
would not be shocked to read there the death of his 
child, or of his dearest friend ; but that he feels a 
kind of pleasure in reading that of an acquaintance, 
because it gives him something to talk about with 
every body on whom he may have to call during the 
day. ____„ 



200 BECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

You remember the passage in King Lear, — a pas- 
sage which Mrs. Siddons said that she never could 
read without shedding tears, — 

" Do not laugh at me; 
For, as I am a man, I think this lady 
To be my child Cordelia."* 

Something of the same kind happened in my own 
family. A gentleman, a near relation of mine, was 
on his death-bed, and his intellect much impaired, 
when his daughter, whom he had not seen for a con- 
siderable time, entered the room. He looked at her 
with the greatest earnestness, and then exclaimed, 
" I think I should know this lady :" but his recog- 
nition went no further. 



One morning I had a visit from Lancaster, whom 
I had never before seen. The moment he entered 
the room, he began to inform me of his distresses, 
and burst into tears. He was unable, he said, to 
carry on his school for want of money, — he owed 
some hundred pounds to his landlord, — he had been 
to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who would do 
* Act iv. sc. 7. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGEBS. 201 

nothing for him, &c, &c. ; and he requested me to 
go and see his school. I went ; and was so delighted 
with what I saw (the system of monitors, &c), that 
I immediately lent him the sum which he stood in 
need of ; and he put his title-deeds into my hands. 
I never was repaid one farthing of that money ; in- 
deed, on finding that Lancaster owed much larger 
sums both to William Allen and to Joseph Fox, I 
forbore urging my claims, and returned the title- 
deeds.* 



George Selwyn, as every body knows, delighted 
in seeing executions ; he never missed being in at a 
death at Tyburn. When Lord Holland (the father 
of Charles Fox) was confined to bed by a dangerous 

* " I was well acquainted with Lancaster. He once came to 
me in great agitation, and complained bitterly that ' they wanted to 
put him under the control of a committee, who were to allow him 
365/. a-year,' &c. &c. I knew how thoughtless and improvident 
he had been, driving about the country with four horses, and doing 
many other foolish things ; and I could not take that view of his 
case which he wished n% to take. This offended him : he burst 
into tears, and left the room, declaring that he would never again 
come near me. He went to America, and died there in obscurity, 
— a man who, if he had only possessed prudence, might have had 
statues erected to him." Me. Maltbt (see notice prefixed to Por- 
soniana in this volume). — Ed. 



202 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

illness, he was informed by his servant that Mr. 
Selwyn had recently called to inquire for him. "On 
his next visit," said Lord Holland, " be sure you let 
him in, whether I am alive or a corpse ; for, if I am 
alive, / shall have great pleasure in seeing him ; and 
if I am a corpse, he will have great pleasure in seeing 
me. 1 ' — The late Lord Holland told me this. 



Payne Knight was seized with an utter loathing 
of life, and destroyed himself. He had complaints 
which were very painful, and his nerves were com- 
pletely shattered.* Shortly before his death, he 
would come to me of an evening, and tell me how 
sick he was of existence. He had recourse to the 
strongest prussic acid; and, I understand, he was 
dead before it touched his lips. 



Two of the most enchanting lyrics in our lan- 
guage are Collins's Ode to Evening, and Coleridge's 
Love. The former could not possibly be improved 
by the addition of rhyme. The latter is so exqui- 

* Compare this account with an incidental mention of Payne 
fenight in Ugo Eoscolo's Discorso sul Testo, fyc. di Dante, p. 26. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 203 

sitely musical, that I had often repeated it to myself 
before I discovered that the first and third lines of 
each stanza do not rhyme. 

Coleridge was a marvellous talker. One morning, 
when Hookham Frere also breakfasted with me, 
Coleridge talked for three hours without intermis- 
sion about poetry, and so admirably, that I wish 
every word he uttered had been written down. 

But sometimes his harangues were quite unintel- 
ligible, not only to myself, but to others. Words- 
worth and I called upon him one forenoon, when he 
was in a lodging off Pall Mall. He talked uninter- 
ruptedly for about two hours, during which Words- 
worth listened to him with profound attention, every 
now and then nodding his head as if in assent. On 
quitting the lodging, I said to Wordsworth, " Well, 
for my own part, I could not make head or tail of 
Coleridge's oration : pray, did you understand it ?" 
" Not one syllable of it," was Wordsworth's reply.* 

Speaking of composition, Coleridge said most 

* Wordsworth once observed to me : " "What is somewhere 
stated in print, — that I said, ' Coleridge was the only person whose 
intellect ever astonished me,' is quite true. His conversation was 
even finer in his youth than in his later days ; for, as he advanced 
in life, he became a little dreamy and hyper-metaphysical." — Ej^ 



204 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

beautifully, " What comes from the heart goes to 
the heart." 

Coleridge spoke and wrote* very disparagingly of 
Mackintosh : but Mackintosh, who had not a particle 
of envy or jealousy in his nature, did full justice, on 
all occasions, to the great powers of Coleridge. 

Southey used to say that " the moment anything 
assumed the shape of a duty, Coleridge felt himself 
incapable of discharging it." 



In all his domestic relations Southey was the 
most amiable of men ; but he had no general philan- 
thropy ; he was what you call a cold man. He was 
never happy except when reading a book or making 
one. Coleridge once said to me, " I can't think of 
Southey, without seeing him either mending or using 
a pen." I spent some time with him at Lord Lons- 
dale's, in company with Wordsworth and others ; and 
while the rest of the party were walking about, talk- 
ing, and amusing themselves, Southey preferred sit- 
ting solus in the library. "How cold he is!" was 

* See, in Coleridge's Poet. Works, ii. 87 (ed. Pickering), The 
Two Hound Spaces on the Tombstone. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 205 

the exclamation of Wordsworth, — himself so joyous 
and communicative. 

Southey told me that he had read Spenser through 
about thirty times, and that he could not read Pope 
through once. He thought meanly of Virgil ; so did 
Coleridge ; and so, at one time, did Wordsworth. 
When I lately mentioned to Wordsworth an un- 
favourable opinion which he had formerly expressed 
to me about a passage of Virgil, " Oh," he said, " we 
used to talk a great deal of nonsense in those days." 



Early in the present century, I set out on a tour 
in Scotland, accompanied by my sister ; but an acci- 
dent which happened to her prevented us from going 
as far as we had intended. During our excursion 
we fell in with Wordsworth, Miss Wordsworth, and 
Coleridge, who were, at the same time, making a tour 
in a vehicle that looked very like a cart. Words- 
worth and Coleridge were entirely occupied in talk- 
ing about poetry ; and the whole care of looking out 
for cottages where they might get refreshment and 
pass the night, as well as of seeing their poor horse 
fed and littered, devolved upon Miss Wordsworth. 
She was a most delightful person, — so full of talent, 



206 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

so simple-minded, and so modest ! If I am not mis- 
taken, Coleridge proved so impracticable a travelling- 
companion, that Wordsworth and his sister were at 
last obliged to separate from him.* During that 
tour they met with Scott, who repeated to them a 
portion of his then unpublished Lay ; which Words- 
worth, as might be expected, did not greatly admire. f 

I do indeed regret that Wordsworth has printed 
only fragments of his sister's Journal :% it is most ex- 
cellent, and ought to have been published entire. 

I was walking with Lord Lonsdale on the terrace 
at Lowther Castle, when he said, " I wish I could do 

* " Coleridge," writes Wordsworth, " was at that time in bad 
spirits, and somewhat too much in love with his own dejection; and 
he departed from us, as is recorded in my sister's journal, soon after 
we left Loch Lomond," Memoirs of Wordsworth, i. 207. This 
tour took place in 1803. — Ed. 

f In my memoranda of Wordsworth's conversation I find this: 
" From Sir Walter Scott's earliest poems, The Eve of St. John, &c. 
I did not suppose that he possessed the power which he afterwards 
displayed, especially in his novels. Coleridge's Christabel no doubt 
gave him the idea of writing long ballad-poems : Dr. Stoddart had 
a very wicked memory, and repeated various passages of it (then 
unpublished) to Scott. Part of the Lay of the Last Minstrel was 
recited to me by Scott while it was yet in manuscript ; and I did 
not expect that it would make much sensation : but I was mistaken ; 
for it went up like a balloon,"— Ed. 

J A large portion of it has since been printed in the Memoirs of 
her brother. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 207 

something for poor Campbell." My rejoinder was, 
" I wish you would do something for poor Words- 
worth, who is in such straitened circumstances, that 
he and his family deny themselves animal food se- 
veral times a week." Lord Lonsdale was the more 
inclined to assist Wordsworth, because the Words- 
worth family had been hardly used by the preceding 
Lord Lonsdale ; and he eventually proved one of his 
kindest friends. 

What a noble-minded person Lord Lonsdale was! 
I have received from him, in this room, hundreds of 
pounds for the relief of literary men. 

I never attempted to write a sonnet, because I do 
not see why a man, if he has any thing worth saying, 
should be tied down to fourteen lines. Wordsworth 
perhaps appears to most advantage in a sonnet, be- 
cause its strict limits prevent him from running into 
that wordiness to which he is somewhat prone. Don't 
imagine from what I have just said, that I mean to 
disparage Wordsworth : he deserves all his fame. 

There are passages in Wordsworth where I can 
trace his obligations to Usher^s Clio. % 



* Clio, or a Discourse on Taste, — a little volume of no ordinary 
merit.— Ed. 



208 BECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Hoppner was a painter of decided genius. Some 
of his portraits are equal to any modern portraits ; 
and his Venus is certainly fine. 

He had an awful temper, —the most spiteful 
person I ever knew ! He and I were members of a 
club called the Council of Trent (so named from its 
consisting of thirty) ; and because, on one occasion, 
I was interesting myself about the admission of an 
artist whom Hoppner disliked, Hoppner wrote me a 
letter full of the bitterest reproach. Yet he had 
his good qualities. He had been a singing-boy at 
Windsor,* and consequently was allowed " the run 
of the royal kitchen ;" but some time after his mar- 
riage (and, it was supposed, through the ill offices of 
West) that favour was withdrawn ; and in order to 
conceal the matter from his wife, who, he knew, 
would be greatly vexed at it, Hoppner occasionally, 
after secretly pocketing a roll to dine upon, would 
go out for the day, and on his return pretend that 
he had been dining at Windsor. 

He and GifFord were the dearest friends in the 

* In consequence of the sweetness of his voice, he was made a 
chorister in the Koyal Chapel. His mother was one of the German 
attendants at the Palace. See A. Cunningham's Lives of British 
Painters, v. 242. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 209 

world; and yet they were continually falling out 
and abusing each other. One morning, Hoppner, 
having had some little domestic quarrel with Mrs. 
Hoppner, exclaimed very vehemently, " Is not a 
man to be pitied who has such a wife and such a 
friend" (meaning Gifford) ? 

His wife and daughter were always grumbling, 
because, when he was asked to the Duchess of • ■ - 's 
or to Lord — — 's, they were not invited also ; and 
he once said to them, " I might as well attempt to 
take the York waggon with me as you." Indeed, 
society is so constituted in England, that it is useless 
for celebrated artists to think of bringing their fami- 
lies into the highest circles, where themselves are ad- 
mitted only on account of their genius. Their wives 
and daughters must be content to remain at home. 



Gifford was extremely indignant at an article on 
his translation of Juvenal which appeared in The 
Critical Review; and he put forth a very angry 
answer to it, — a large quarto pamphlet. I lent my 
copy to Byron, and he never returned it. One pas- 
sage in that pamphlet is curious, because it describes, 

p 



210 BECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

what Gifford was himself eventually to become, — a 
reviewer; who is compared to a huge toad sitting 
under a stone : and besides, the passage is very 
picturesque. ["During my apprenticeship, I en- 
joyed perhaps as many places as Scrub, though I 
suspect they were not altogether so dignified : the 
chief of them was that of a planter of cabbages in a 
bit of ground which my master held near the town. 
It was the decided opinion of Panurge that the life 
of a cabbage-planter was the safest and pleasantest 
in the world, I found it safe enough, I confess, but 
not altogether pleasant; and therefore took every 
opportunity of attending to what I liked better, 
which happened to be 5 watching the actions of in- 
sects and reptiles, and, among the rest, of a huge 
toad. I never loved toads, but I never molested 
them ; for my mother had early bid me remember, 
that every living thing had the same Maker as my- 
self; and the words always rang in my ears. This 
toad, then, who had taken up his residence under a 
hollow stone in a hedge of blind nettles, I used to 
watch for hours together. It was a lazy, lumpish 
animal, that squatted on its belly, and perked up its 
hideous head with two glazed eyes, precisely like a 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGERS. 211 

Critical Reviewer. In this posture, perfectly satis- 
fied with itself, it would remain as if it were a part 
of the stone which sheltered it, till the cheerful buz- 
zing of some winged insect provoked it to give signs 
of life. The dead glare of its eyes then brightened 
into a vivid lustre, and it awkwardly shuffled to the 
entrance of its cell, and opened its detestable mouth 
to snap the passing fly or honey-bee. Since I have 
marked the manners of the Critical Reviewers, these 
passages of my youth have often occurred to me." 
An Examination of the Strictures of the Critical Re- 
viewers on the Translation of Juvenal by W. Gifford, 
Esq., p. 101, third ed. 1804.] 

When the Quarterly Review was first projected, 
Gifford sent Hoppner to my house with a message 
requesting me to become a contributor to it ; which 
I declined. 



That odd being, Dr. Monsey (Physician to the 
Royal Hospital, Chelsea), used to hide his bank- 
notes in various holes and corners of his house. One 
evening, before going out, he carefully deposited a 
bundle of them among the coals in the parlour-grate, 
where the fire was ready for lighting. Presently, 



212 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

his housekeeper came into the parlour, with some 
of her female friends, to have a comfortable cup of 
tea ; and she was in the act of lighting the fire when 
the doctor luckily returned, and rescued his notes. 
A friend of mine, who had been intimate with Mon- 
sey, assured me that this was fact. 

Bishop Horsley one day met Monsey in the Park. 
"These are dreadful times!" said Horsley: "not 
only do deists abound, but, — would you think it, 
doctor ? — some people deny that there is a God !" — 
" I can tell you," replied Monsey, "what is equally 
strange, — some people believe that there are three."* 
Horsley immediately walked away. 



An Englishman and a Frenchman having quar- 
relled, they were to fight a duel. Being both great 
cowards, they agreed (for their mutual safety, of 
course) that the duel should take place in a room 
perfectly dark. The Englishman had to fire first. 
He groped his way to the hearth, fired up the chim- 
ney, and brought down — the Frenchman, who had 
taken refuge there. 

* To say nothing else of this speech, — it was a very rude one, 
as addressed to a bishop. But Monsey was a coarse humorist, 
who would hardly be tolerated in the present day. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGEES. 213 

A certain man of pleasure about London received 
a challenge from a young gentleman of his acquaint- 
ance ; and they met at the appointed place. Just 
before the signal for firing was given, the man of 
pleasure rushed up to his antagonist, embraced him, 
and vehemently protested that " he could not lift his 
arm against his own flesh and blood!" The young 
gentleman, though he had never heard any imputa- 
tion cast upon his mother's character, was so much 
staggered, that (as the ingenious man of pleasure had 
foreseen) no duel took place. 

Humphrey Howarth, the surgeon, was called out, 
and made his appearance in the field stark naked, to 
the astonishment of the challenger, who asked him 
what he meant. " I know," said H., " that if any 
part of the clothing is carried into the body by a 
gunshot wound, festering ensues; and therefore I 
have met you thus." His antagonist declared, that 
fighting with a man in puris naturalibus would be 
quite ridiculous ; and accordingly they parted with- 
out further discussion. 

Lord Alvanley on returning home, after his duel 
with young O'Connel, gave a guinea to the hackney- 
coachman who had driven him out and brought him 



214 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

back. The man, surprised at the largeness of the 

sum, said, " My lord, I only took you to ." 

Alvanley interrupted him, "My friend, the guinea 
is for bringing me bach, not for taking me out." 



I was on a visit to Lord Bath at Longleat, when 
I received a letter from Beckford inviting me to 
Fonthill. I went there, and stayed three days. On 
arriving at the gate, I was informed that neither 
my servant nor my horses could be admitted, but 
that Mr. Beckford's attendants and horses should be 
at my service. The other visitors at that time were 
Smith, who published Views in Italy * and a French 
ecclesiastic, a very elegant and accomplished man. 
During the day we used to drive about the beautiful 
grounds in pony-chaises. In the evening Beckford 
would amuse us by reading one of his unpublished 
works ; or he would extemporise on the pianoforte, 
producing the most novel and charming melodies 
(which, by the by, his daughter, the Duchess of 
Hamilton, can do also). 

* Select Views in Italy, with Descriptions, Fr, and English, by 
John Smith, 1792-6, 2 vols. 4to.— Ed, 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 215 

I was struck rather by the refinement than by 
the magnificence of the hospitality at Fonthill. I 
slept in a bedroom which opened into a gallery 
where lights were kept burning the whole night. 
In that gallery was a picture of St. Antonio, to which 
it was said that Beckford would sometimes steal and 
pay his devotions. 

Beckford read to me the two unprinted episodes 
to Vathek ; and they are extremely fine, but very 
objectionable on account of their subjects. Indeed, 
they show that the mind of the author was to a 
certain degree diseased. The one is the story of a 
prince and princess, a brother and sister, * 

* The other is the tale of a prince who is 

violently enamoured of a lady; and who, after pur- 
suing her through various countries, at last overtakes 
her only to find her a corpse. * * * * 

In one of these tales there is an exquisite description 
of a voyage down the Nile. 

Beckford is the author of two burlesque novels, 
■ — Azemia* and The Elegant Enthusiast. I have a 
copy of the former, which he presented to me. 

* Azemia : a descriptive and sentimental Novel, interspersed with 
pieces of Poetry. By Jacquetta Agneta Mariana Jenks, of Bellegrove 



216 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

He read to me another tale which he had written 
— a satirical one. It was in French, and about a man 
who was ridiculously fond of dogs, &c. &c. I have 
been told that a part of his own life was shadowed 
out in it. This tale he never printed. In fact, he had 
no wish to obtain literary reputation : he despised it. 

I have seen Beckford shed tears while talking of 
his deceased wife. His eldest daughter (Mrs. Orde*), 

Priory in Wales. Dedicated to the Right Honourable Lady Harriet 
Marlow. To which are added, Criticisms anticipated, 1797, 2 vols. 
— Modern Novel Writing, or the Elegant Enthusiast; and Interesting 
Emotions of Arabella Bloomville. A Rhapsodical Romance; inter- 
spersed with Poetry. By the Right Hon. Lady Harriet Marlow, 1796, 
2 vols. — " Talked of Beckford's two mock novels, * Agenda' \_Azemia~] 
and the l Elegant Enthusiast,' which he wrote to ridicule the novels 
written by his sister, Mrs. Harvey (I think), who read these parodies 
on herself quite innocently, and only now and then suspecting that 
they were meant to laugh at her, saying, Why, I vow and protest, 
here is my grotto, &c. &c. In the ' Elegant Enthusiast' the heroine 
writes a song which she sings at a masquerade, and which produces 
such an effect, that my Lord Mahogany, in the character of a Mile- 
stone, bursts into tears. It is in ' Agenda' \_Azemia~] that all the 
heroes and heroines are killed at the conclusion by a supper of stewed 
lampreys.'' Moore's Memoirs, &c, ii. 197. As to the catastrophe 
of Azemia, Moore was misinformed ; that tale has nothing about a 
fatal supper of stewed lampreys: there is, however, in the second 
volume of The Elegant Enthusiast a similar incident, " owing to a 
copper stew-pan in which some celery had been cooked." Both 
these novels are much in the style of Beckford's Memoirs of Extra- 
ordinary Painters, but greatly inferior to that strange production, 
which itself is unworthy of the author of Vathek. — Ed. 
* Wife of Colonel, afterwards General Orde. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 217 

who has been long dead, was both in appearance and 
disposition a perfect angel. Her delight was, not to 
be admired herself, but to witness the admiration 
which her sister (the Duchess of Hamilton) never 
failed to excite. 

Beckford was eventually reduced to such straits, 
that he was obliged to part with his pictures, one by 
one. The last picture which he sold to the National 
Gallery was Bellini's portrait of the Doge of Venice. 
It was hung up the very day on which Beckford 
died : the Duke of Hamilton wrote a letter to me, 
requesting that it might be returned to the family ; 
but his application came too late. 



When Porson dined with me, I used to keep him 
within bounds ; but I frequently met him at various 
houses where he got completely drunk. He would 
not scruple to return to the dining-room, after the 
company had left it, pour into a tumbler the drops 
remaining in the wine-glasses, and drink off the om- 
nium gatherum.* 

* Mr. Maltby (see notice prefixed to the Porsoniana in this vol.), 
who was present when Mr. Rogers told the above anecdote, said, 
" I have seen Porson do so." — Ed. 



218 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

I once took him to an evening-party at William 
Spencer's, where he was introduced to several women 
of fashion, Lady Crewe, &c.-, who were very anxious 
to see the great Grecian. How do you suppose he 
entertained them? Chiefly by reciting an immense 
quantity of old forgotten Vauxhall songs. He was 
far from sober, and at last talked so oddly, that they 
all retired from him, except Lady Crewe, who boldly 
kept her ground. I recollect her saying to him, 
" Mr. Porson, that joke you have borrowed from 
Joe Miller," and his rather angry reply, " Madam, 
it is not in Joe Miller ; you will not find it either in 
the preface or in the body of that work, no, nor in 
the index." I brought him home as far as Picca- 
dilly, where, I am sorry to add, I left him sick in 
the middle of the street. 

When any one told Porson that he intended to 
publish a book, Porson w 7 ould say, "Remember that 
two parties must agree on that point, — you and the 
reader." 

I asked him what time it would take him to 
translate The Iliad literally and correctly into Eng- 
lish prose. He answered, " At least ten years." 

He used to say that something may be pleaded 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 219 

as a sort of excuse for the wickedness of the worst 
characters in Shakespeare. For instance, Iago is 
tortured by suspicions that Othello has been too 
intimate with his wife; Richard the Third, the mur- 
derer of children, has been bitterly taunted by one 
of the young princes, &c. 

"If I had a carriage," said Porson, "and if I 
saw a well-dressed person on the road, I w T ould al- 
ways invite him in, and learn of him what I could. 5 ' 
Such was his love of knowledge ! 

He was fond of repeating these lines, and wrote 

them out for me ; 

" What* fools are mankind, 
And how strangely inclin'd, 
To come from all places 
With horses and chaises, 
By day and by dark, 
To the falls of Lanark ! 
For, good people, after all, 
What is a water-fall ? 
It comes roaring and grumbling, 
And leaping and tumbling, 
And hopping and skipping, 
And foaming and dripping; 

* From Garnett's Tour in Scotland, vol. ii. 227. They were 
found in an album kept at the inn at Lanark, — Ed. 



220 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

And struggling and toiling, 
And bubbling and boiling; 
And beating and jumping, 
And bellowing and thumping. 
I have much more to say upon 
Both Linn and Bonniton ; 
But the trunks are tied on, 
And I must be gone." 

These lines evidently suggested to South ey his 
playful verses on The Cataract of Lodore. 



Oh, the exquisite English in many parts of our 
version of the Scriptures ! I sometimes think that 
the translators, as well as the original writers, must 
have been inspired. 



Lord Seaforth, who w r as born deaf and dumb, 
was to dine one day with Lord Melville. Just be- 
fore the time of the company's arrival, Lady Melville 
sent into the drawing-room a lady of her acquaint- 
ance, who could talk with her fingers to dumb peo- 
ple, that she might receive Lord Seaforth. Pre- 
sently Lord Guilford entered the room ; and the 
lady, taking him for Lord Seaforth, began to ply 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGERS. 221 

her fingers very nimbly : Lord Guilford did the same ; 
and they had been carrying on a conversation in this 
manner for about ten minutes, when Lady Melville 
joined them. Her female friend immediately said, 
" Well, I have been talking away to this dumb man." 
— "Dumb!" cried Lord Guilford; "bless me, I 
thought you were dumb." — I told this story (which 
is perfectly true) to Matthews ; and he said that he 
could make excellent use of it at one of his evening- 
entertainments : but I know not if he ever did. 



I can discover from a poet's versification whether 
or not he has an ear for music. Shakespeare's, Mil* 
ton's, Dryden's, and Gray's prove to me that they 
had it ; Pope's that he had it not : — indeed, with 
respect to Shakespeare, the passage in The Mer- 
chant of Venice* would be enough to settle the 
question. To instance poets of the present day;— 
from Bowles's and Moore's versification, I should 

* " The man that hath no music in himself, 

Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, 

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; 

The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 

And his affections dark as Erebus : 

Let no such man be trusted," Act v, sc. 1.— Ed. 



222 BECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

know that they had fine ears for music ; from 
Southey's, Wordsworth's, and Byron's, that they had 
no ears for it. 



To any one who has reached a very advanced age, 
a walk through the streets of London is like a walk 
in a cemetery. How many houses do I pass, now 
inhabited by strangers, in which I used to spend 
such happy hours with those who have long been 
dead and gone ! 



A friend of mine in Portland Place has a wife 
who inflicts upon him every season two or three im- 
mense evening parties. At one of those parties he 
was standing in a very forlorn condition, leaning 
against the chimney-piece, when a gentleman, coming 
up to him, said, " Sir, as neither of us is acquainted 
with any of the people here, I think we had best go 
home." 



One of the books which I never tire reading is 
Memoires sur la vie de Jean Racine^ by his son. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGERS. 223 

When I was living in the Temple, the chimneys 
of one of my neighbours were to be swept. Up went 
two boys ; and at the end of an hour they had not 
come down again. Two other boys were then sent 
up ; and up they remained also. The master of the 
boys was now summoned, who, on his arrival, ex- 
claimed, " Oh, the idle little rascals ! they are play- 
ing at all-fours on the top of the chimney ." And, 
to be sure, there they were, trumping it away at their 
ease. I suppose spades were their favourite cards. 



How little Crowe is known* even to persons who 
are fond of poetry! Yet his Lewesdon Hill is full 
of noble passages ; for instance, that about the Hals- 
well; 

[" See how the sun, here clouded^ afar* off 
Pours down the golden radiance of his light 
Upon the enridged sea ; where the black ship 
Sails on the phosphor-seeming waves. So fair. 
But falsely-flattering, was yon surface calm, 

* So very little known, that I give at full length those pas- 
sages of his poems which Mr. Rogers particularly admired.— 
Ed. 



224 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

When forth for India sail'd, in evil time, 
That vessel, whose disastrous fate, when told, 
Fill'd every breast with horror, and each eye 
With piteous tears, so cruel was the loss. 
Methinks I see her, as, by the wintry storm 
Shatter d and driven along past yonder isle, 
She strove, her latest hope, by strength or art, 
To gain the port within it, or at worst 
To shun that harbourless and hollow coast 
From Portland eastward to the promontory 
Where still St. Alban's high -built chapel stands. 
But art nor strength avail her — on she drives, 
In storm and darkness, to the fatal coast ; 
And there 'mong rocks and high o'er-hanging cliffs 
Dash'd piteously, with all her precious freight 
Was lost, by Neptune's wild and foamy jaws 
Swallow'd up quick ! The richliest-laden ship 
Of spicy Ternate, or that annual sent 
To the Philippines o'er the southern main 
From Acapulco, carrying massy gold, 
Were poor to this ; — freighted with hopeful Youth, 
And Beauty, and high Courage un<ii$may'd 
By mortal terrors, and paternal Love 
Strong, and unconquerable even in death — 
Alas, they perish'd all, all in one hour !"] 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 225 

The conclusion of the poem is charming : 

[" But ill accords my verse with the delights 
Of this gay mouth :— and see, the villagers 
Assembliug jocund in their best attire, 
To grace this genial morn. ~Now I descend 
To join the worldly crowd ; perchance to talk, 
To think, to act, as they ; then all these thoughts, 
That lift th' expanded heart above this spot 
To heavenly musing, these shall pass away 
(Even as this goodly prospect from my view), 
Hidden by near and earthy-rooted cares. 
So passeth human life — our better mind 
Is as a Sunday's garment, then put on 
When we have nought to do ; but at our work 
We wear a worse for thrift. Of this enough : 
To-morrow for severer thought ; but now 
To breakfast, and keep festival to-day."] 

Of Crowe's Verses intended to have been spoken 
in the Theatre at Oxford on the Installation of the 
Duke of Portland as Chancellor of the University, a 
portion is very grand ; 

[" If the stroke of war 
Fell certain on the guilty head, none else, 



226 BECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

If they that make the cause might taste th' effect, 

And drink, themselves, the bitter cup they mix, 

Then might the bard (though child of peace) delight 

To twine fresh wreaths around the conqueror's brow ; 

Or haply strike his high-ton'd harp, to swell 

The trumpet's martial sound, and bid them on 

Whom justice arms for vengeance : but, alas ! 

That undistinguishing and deathful storm 

Beats heaviest on th' exposed innocent, 

And they that stir its fury, while it raves, 

Stand at safe distance, send their mandate forth 

Unto the mortal ministers that wait 

To do their bidding. — Oh, who then regards 

The widow's tears, the friendless orphan's cry. 

And Famine, and the ghastly train of woes 

That follow at the dogged heels of War 1 

They, in the pomp and pride of victory 

Rejoicing, o'er the desolated earth, 

As at an altar wet with human blood, 

And flaming with the fire of cities burnt, 

Sing their mad hymns of triumph ; hymns to God, 

O'er the destruction of his gracious works ! 

Hymns to the Father, o'er his slaughter'd sons !"] 

Crowe was an intimate friend of mine. — When I was 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGERS. 227 

travelling in Italy, I made two authors my constant 
study for versification, — Milton and Crowe. 



Most people are ever on the watch to find fault 
with their children, and are afraid of praising them 
for fear of spoiling them. Now, I am sure that no- 
thing has a better effect on children than praise. I 
had a proof of this in Moore's daughter : he used 
always to be saying to her, " What a good little 
girl!" and she continued to grow more and more 
good, till she became too good for this world and 
died. 



Did ever poet, dramatist, or novel-writer, devise 
a more effective incident than the falling of the rug 
in Molly Seagrim's bedroom ?* Can any thing be 
more happily ludicrous, when we consider how the 
actors in that scene are connected with each other ? 
It probably suggested to Sheridan the falling of the 
screen in The School for Scandal.^ 



* See Fielding's Tom Jones, b. v. eh. 5.— Ed. 
f No doubt it did ; as the Jones and Blifil of the same novel 
suggested to him Charles and Joseph Surface.— Ed. 



228 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Neither Moore nor myself had ever seen Byron 
when it was settled that he should dine at my house 
to meet Moore; nor was he known by sight to 
Campbell^ who, happening to call upon me that 
morning, consented to join the party. I thought it 
best that I alone should be in the drawing-room when 
Byron entered it ; and Moore and Campbell ac- 
cordingly withdrew. Soon after his arrival, they 
returned ; and I introduced them to him severally, 
naming them as Adam named the beasts. When we 
sat down to dinner, I asked Byron if he would take 
soup? "No; he never took soup."— Would he 
take some fish? " No; he never took fish." — Pre- 
sently I asked if he would eat some mutton ? " No ; 
he never ate mutton." — I then asked if he w r ould 
take a glass of wine ? " No ; he never tasted wine." 
— It was now necessary to inquire what he did eat 
and drink ; and the answer was, " Nothing but hard 
biscuits and soda-water." Unfortunately, neither 
hard biscuits nor soda-water were at hand ; and he 
dined upon potatoes bruised down on his plate and 
drenched with vinegar. — My guests stayed till very 
late, discussing the merits of Walter Scott and Joanna 
Baillie. — Some days after, meeting Hobhouse, I said 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGEES. 229 

to him, " How long will Lord Byron persevere in his 

present diet ?" He replied, " Just as long as you 
continue to notice it." — I did not then know, what 
I now know to be a fact, — that Byron, after leaving 
my house, had gone to a Club in St. James's Street, 
and eaten a hearty meat-supper. 

Byron sent me Childe Harold in the printed 
sheets before it w r as published; and I read it to 
my sister. " This," I said, "in spite of all its 
beauty, will never please the public : they will dis- 
like the querulous repining tone that pervades it, 
and the dissolute character of the hero." But I 
quickly found that I was mistaken. The genius 
which the poem exhibited, the youth, the rank of 
the author, his romantic wanderings in Greece, — 
these combined to make the world stark mad about 
Childe Harold and Byron. I knew two old maids in 
Buckinghamshire who used to cry over the passage 
about Harold's " laughing dames" that " long had 
fed his youthful appetite,"* &c. 

After Byron had become the rage, I was fre- 
quently amused at the manoeuvres of certain noble 
ladies to get acquainted with him by means of me : 

* Canto i. st. 11.— Ed. 



230 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

for instance, I would receive a note from Lady 

requesting the pleasure of my company on a parti- 
cular evening, with a postscript, " Pray, could you 
not contrive to bring Lord Byron with you ?" — Once, 
at a great party given by Lady Jersey, Mrs. Sheridan 
ran up to me and said, " Do, as a favour, try if you 
can place Lord Byron beside me at supper." 

Byron had prodigious facility of composition. 
He was fond of suppers ; and used often to sup at 
my house and eat heartily (for he had then given up 
the hard biscuit and soda-water diet): after going 
home, he would throw off sixty or eighty verses, 
which he would send to press next morning. 

He one evening took me to the green-room of 
Drury Lane Theatre, where I was much entertained. 
"When the play began, I went round to the front of 
the house, and desired the box-keeper to show me 
into Lord Byron's box. I had been there about a 
minute, thinking myself quite alone, when suddenly 
Byron and Miss Boyce (the actress) emerged from a 
dark corner. 

In those days at least, Byron had no readiness of 
reply in conversation. If you happened to let fall 
any observation which offended him, he would say 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL BOGEKS. 231 

nothing at the time ; but the offence would lie rank- 
ling in his mind ; and perhaps a fortnight after, he 
would suddenly come out with some very cutting 
remarks upon you, giving them as his deliberate 
opinions, the results of his experience of your cha- 
racter. 

Several women were in love with Byron, but none 
so violently as Lady Caroline Lamb. She absolutely 
besieged him. He showed me the first letter he re- 
ceived from her ; in which she assured him that, if 
he was in any want of money, " all her jewels were 
at his service." They frequently had quarrels ; and 
more than once, on coming home, I have found Lady 
C. walking in the garden,* and waiting for me, to 
beg that I would reconcile them. — When she met 
Byron at a party, she would always, if possible, re- 
turn home from it in Ms carriage, and accompanied 
by him: I recollect particularly their returning to 
town together from Holland House. — But such was 
the insanity of her passion for Byron, that sometimes, 
when not invited to a party where he was to be, she 
would wait for him in the street till it was over! 
One night, after a great party at Devonshire House, 

* Behind Mr. Rogers's house, in St. James's Place. — Ed. 



232 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

to which Lady Caroline had not been invited, I saw 
her, — yes, saw her, — talking to Byron, with half of 
her body thrust into the carriage which he had just 
entered. In spite of all this absurdity, my firm belief 
is that there was nothing criminal between them. 

Byron at last was sick of her. When their inti- 
macy was at an end, and while she was living in the 
country, she burned, very solemnly, on a sort of 
funeral pile, transcripts of all the letters which she 
had received from Byron, and a copy of a miniature 
(his portrait) which he had presented to her ; se- 
veral girls from the neighbourhood, whom she had 
dressed in white garments, dancing round the pile, 
and singing a song which she had written for the oc- 
casion, "Burn, fire, burn," &c. — She was mad; and 
her family allowed her to do whatever she chose. 

Latterly, I believe, Byron never dined with Lady 
B. ; for it was one of his fancies (or affectations) that 
" he could not endure to see women eat." I recollect 
that he once refused to meet Madame de Stael at 
my house at dinner, but came in the evening; and 
when I have asked him to dinner without mention- 
ing what company I was to have, he would write me 
a note to inquire "if I had invited any women." 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL SOGERS. 233 

Wilkes's daughter may have had a right to burn 
her father's Memoirs ;* but Moore, I conceive, was 
not justified in giving his consent to the burning of 
Byron's : when Byron told him that he might " do 
whatever he pleased with them/* Byron certainly 
never contemplated their being burned. If Moore 
had made me his confidant in the business^ I should 
have protested warmly against the destruction of the 
Memoirs : but he chose Luttrell, probably because he 
thought him the more fashionable man ; and Lut- 
trell, who cared nothing about the matter, readily 
voted that they should be put into the fire. — There 
were, I understand, some gross things in that manu- 
script ; but I read only a portion of it, and did not 
light upon them. I remember that it contained this 
anecdote : — on his marriage-night, Byron suddenly 
started out of his first sleep : a taper, which burned 
in the room, was casting a ruddy glare through the 
crimson curtains of the bed ; and he could not help 
exclaiming, in a voice so loud that he wakened Lady 
B., " Good God, I am surely in hell !" 

* " Wilkes said to me, ' I have written my Memoirs, and they 
are to be published by Peter Elmsley, after my ascension.' They 
were burnt by his daughter." Me. Maltbt (see notice prefixed to 
the Porsoniana in this volume). — Ed. 



234 RECOLLECTIONS OE THE 

My latest intercourse with Byron was in Italy. 
We travelled some time together ; and, if there was 
any scenery particularly well worth seeing, he gene- 
rally contrived that we should pass through it in the 
dark. 

As we were crossing the Apennines, he told me 
that he had left an order in his will that Allegra, the 
child w T ho soon after died, his daughter by Miss C, 
should never be taught the English language. — You 
know that Allegra was buried at Harrow : but pro- 
bably you have not heard that the body was sent 
over to England in tivo packages, that no one might 
suspect what it was. 

About the same time he said, — being at last 
assured that the celebrated critique on his early 
poems in The Edinburgh Review was written by Lord 
Brougham, — " If ever I return to England, Brougham 
shall hear from me." He added, " That critique cost 
me three bottles of claret" (to raise his spirits after 
reading it).* 

* Wordsworth was spending an evening at Charles Lamb's, 
when he first saw the said critique, which had just appeared. 
He read it through, and remarked that "though Byron's verses 
w r ere probably poor enough, yet such an attack was abominable, — 
that a young nobleman, who took to poetry, deserved to be en- 
couraged, not ridiculed." Perhaps if this had been made known 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 235 

One day, during dinner, at Pisa,* when Shelley 
and Trelawney were with us, Byron chose to run 
down Shakespeare (for whom he, like Sheridan, 
either had, or pretended to have, little admiration). 
I said nothing. But Shelley immediately took up 
the defence of the great poet, and conducted it in 
his usual meek yet resolute manner, unmoved by 

to Byron, he would not have spoken of Wordsworth as he has done. 
— Many years ago Wordsworth gave me the following account, 
which I noted down at the time. " Lord Byron's hatred towards 
me originated thus. There was a woman in distressed circum- 
stances at Bristol, who wrote a volume of poems, which she wished 
to publish and dedicate to me. She had formed an idea that, if 
she became a poetess, her fortune would be made. I endeavoured 
to dissuade her from indulging such vain expectations, and advised 
her to turn her attention to something else. I represented to her 
how little chance there was that her poems, though really evincing 
a good deal of talent, would make any impression on the public ; 
and I observed that, in our day, two persons only (whom I did not 
name) had succeeded in making money by their poetry, adding 
that in the writings of the one (Sir Walter Scott) there was little 
poetic feeling, and that in those of the other (Lord Byron) it was 
perverted. Mr. Eogers told me that when he was travelling with 
Lord Byron in Italy, his lordship confessed that the hatred he bore 
me arose from the remark about his poetry which I had made to 
that woman, and which some good-natured friend had repeated to 
him." — Ed. 

* In Moore's Life of Byron no mention is made of Mr. Eogers 
having been Byron's guest at Pisa. — In Medwin's Angler in Wales, 
i. 25, is an account, — exaggerated perhaps, but doubtless substan- 
tially true, — of Byron's wicked behaviour to Mr. Rogers at the Casa 
Lanfranchi. — Ed. 



236 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

the rude things with which Byron interrupted him, — 
" Oh, that's very well for an atheist" &c. (Before 
meeting Shelley in Italy, I had seen him only once. 
It was at my own house in St. James's Place, where 
he called upon me, — introducing himself, — to re- 
quest the loan of some money which he wished to 
present to Leigh Hunt ; and he offered me a bond 
for it. Having numerous claims upon me at that 
time, I was obliged to refuse the loan. Both in 
appearance and in manners Shelley was the perfect 
gentleman.) — That same day, after dinner, I walked 
in the garden with Byron. At the window of a 
neighbouring house was a young woman holding a 
child in her arms. Byron nodded to her with a 
smile, and then, turning to me, said, " That child is 
mine." In the evening, we (i.e. Byron, Shelley, 
Trelawney, and I) rode out from Pisa to a farm (a 
podere) ; and there a pistol was put into my hand 
for shooting at a mark (a favourite amusement of 
Byron) ; but I declined trying my skill with it. The 
farm-keeper's daughter was very pretty, and had her 
arms covered with bracelets, the gift of Byron, who 
did not fail to let me know that she was one of his 
many loves. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 237 

I went with him to see the Campo Santo at Pisa. 
It was shown to us by a man who had two handsome 
daughters. Byron told me that he had in vain paid 
his addresses to the elder daughter, but that he was 
on the most intimate terms with the other. Pro- 
bably there was not one syllable of truth in all this ; 
for he always had the weakness of wishing to be 
thought much worse than he really was. 

Byron, like Sir Walter Scott,* was without any 
feeling for the fine arts. He accompanied me to 
the Pitti Palace at Florence ; but soon growing 
tired of looking at the pictures, he sat down in a 
corner ; and when I called out to him, " What a 
noble Andrea del Sarto ! " the only answer I re- 
ceived was his muttering a passage from The Vicar 
of Wakefield, — " Upon asking how he had been 
taught the art of a cognoscento so very suddenly," 
&c.f (When he and Hobhouse were standing be- 

* " During Scott's first visit to Paris, I walked with him (and 
Richard Sharp) through the Louvre, and pointed out for his parti- 
cular notice the St. Jerome of Domenichino, and some other chefs- 
d'oeuvre. Scott merely glanced at them, and passed on, saying, 
' I really have not time to examine them.' " Mr. Maltbt (see notice 
prefixed to the Porsoniana in this volume). — Ed. 

f " Upon asking how he had been taught the art of a cogno- 
scento so very suddenly, he assured me that nothing was more easy. 



238 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

fore the Parthenon, the latter said, "Well, this is 
surely very grand." Byron replied, " Very like the 
Mansion-House.") 

At this time we generally had a regular quarrel 
every night ; and he would abuse me through thick 
and thin, raking up all the stories he had heard which 
he thought most likely to mortify me, — how I had 
behaved with great cruelty to Murphy, refusing to 
assist him in his distress, &c. &c. But next morn- 
ing he would shake me kindly by both hands ; and 
we were excellent friends again. 

When I parted from him in Italy (never to meet 
him more), a good many persons were looking on, 
anxious to catch a glimpse of " the famous lord." 

Campbell used to say that the lines which first 
convinced him that Byron was a true poet were 
these ; 

" Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild ; 
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, 

The whole secret consisted in a strict adherence to two rules ; the 
one, always to observe the picture might have been better if the 
painter had taken more pains ; and the other, to praise the works 
of Pietro Perugino." Chap. xx. Compare Byron's own account 
of this visit to the Pitti Palace in his Life by Moore, vol. v. 279. 
—Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 239 

Thine olive ripe as when Minerva snril'd, 
And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields ; 
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds ; 
The free-born wanderer of thy mountain-air ; 
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, 
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare ; 
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair. 

Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground, 
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, 
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, 
And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, 
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold 
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon : 
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold 
Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone : 
Age shakes Athenae's tower, but spares gray Marathon."* 

For my own part, I think that this passage is 
perhaps the best that Byron ever wrote ; 

" To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, 
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; 

* Childe Harold, c. ii. st. 87, 88.— Ed. 



240 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, 
With the wild flock that never needs a fold ; 
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; 
This is not solitude ; 'tis but to hold 
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores un= 
roll'd. 

But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, 
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, 
And roam along, the world's tir'd denizen, 
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless ; 
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress ! 
None that, with kindred consciousness endued, 
If we were not, would seem to smile the less, 
Of all that flatter d, folio w'd, sought, and sued ; 
This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude."* 

The lines in the third canto of Childe Harold 
about the ball given by the Duchess of Richmond 
at Brussels, the night before the battle of Waterloo, 
&c. are very striking. The Duchess told me that 
she had a list of her company, and that, after the 
battle, she added " dead" to the names of those who 
had fallen, — the number being fearful. 

* Childe Harold, c. ii. st. 25, 26.— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 241 

Mrs. Barbauld once observed to me that she 
thought Byron wrote best when he wrote about the 
sea or swimming. 

There is a great deal of- incorrect and hasty writ- 
ing in Byron's works; but it is overlooked in this 
age of hasty readers. For instance, 

" I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs, 
A palace and a prison on each hand,"'* 

He meant to say, that on one hand was a palace, on 
the other a prison. — And what think you of — 

" And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay" ?+ 



Mr. 's house, the , is very splendid; 

it contains a quantity of or-molu. Now, I like to 

* Childe Harold, c. iv. st. 1.— Ed. 

f Id. c. iv. st. ISO. — A lady resident in Aberdeen told me that 
she used to sit in a pew of St. Paul's Chapel in that town, next to 
Mrs. Byron's ; and that one Sunday she observed the poet (then 
about seven or eight years old) amusing: himself by disturbing his 
mother's devotions : he every now and then gently pricked with 
a pin the large round arms of Mrs. Byron, which were covered 
with white kid gloves. — Professor Stuart, of the Marischal College, 
Aberdeen, mentioned to me the following proof of Lord Byroms 
fondness for his mother. Georgy, and some other little boys, were 
one day allowed, much to their delight, to assist at a gathering of 
apples in the Professor's garden, and were rewarded for their labour 

R 



242 BECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

have a kettle in my bed-room, to heat a little water 

if necessary : but I can't get a kettle at the , 

though there is a quantity of or-molu. Lady 

says, that when she is at the , she is obliged to 

have her clothes unpacked three times a day; for 
there are no chests-of-drawers, though there is a 
quantity of or-molu. 



The letters I receive from people, of both sexes 
(people whom I never heard of), asking me for 
money, either as a gift or as a loan, are really innu- 
merable. Here's one* from a student at Durham, 

with some of the fruit. Georgy, having received his portion of 
apples, immediately disappeared; and, on his return, after half-an- 
hour's absence, to the inquiry where he had been, he replied that he 
had been " carrying some apples to his poor dear mother." 

At the house of the Rev. W. Harness I remember hearing Moore 
remark, that he thought the natural bent of Byron's genius was to 
satirical and burlesque poetry: on which Mr. Harness related what 
follows. When Byron was at Harrow, he, one day, seeing a young 
acquaintance at a short distance who was a violent admirer of 
Buonaparte, roared out this extemporaneous couplet, — 

"Bold Robert Speer was Bony y s bad precursor; 
Bob was a bloody dog, but Bonaparfs a worser." 

Moore immediately wrote the lines down, with the intention of in- 
serting them in his Life of Byron, which he was then preparing ; but 
they do not appear in that work.-— Ed. 
* I read the letter. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGEKS. 243 

requesting me to lend him 901. (how modest to stop 
short of the hundred !). I lately had a begging 
epistle from a lady, who assured me that she used 
formerly to take evening walks with me in the Park : 
of course I did not answer it; and a day or two 
after, I had a second letter from her, beginning 
" Unkind one!" 



Uvedale Price* once chose to stay so long at 
my house, that I began to think he would never go 
away ; so I one day ingeniously said to him, " You 
must not leave me before the end of next week ; if you 
insist on going after that, you may ; but certainly 
not before." And at the end of the week he did go. 
He was a most elegant letter-writer ; and his son 
had some intention of collecting and publishing his 
correspondence. 



Not long before Mrs. Inchbald died, I met her 
walking near Charing Cross.' She told me that she 
had been calling on several old friends, but had seen 



* Afterwards a baronet.— Ed. 



244 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

none of them, — some being really not at home, and 
others denying themselves to her/ " I called," she 
said, " on Mrs. Siddons : I knew she was at home ; 
yet I was not admitted." She was in such low spi- 
rits, that she even shed tears. I begged her to turn 
with me, and take a quiet dinner at St. James's 
Place ; but she refused. 

The " excellent writer," whom I quote in my 
Notes on Human Life, is Mrs. Inchbald. [" How 
often, says an excellent writer, do we err in our 
estimate of happiness ! When I hear of a man who 
has noble parks, splendid palaces, and every luxury 
in life, I always inquire whom he has to love ; and 
if I find he has nobody, or does not love those he 
has — in the midst of all his grandeur, I pronounce 
him a being in deep adversity."] The passage is 
from her Nature and Art ;* and Stewart Rose was 

* But Mr. Kogers (as he frequently did when he quoted) has 
considerably altered the passage. Mrs. Inchbald's words are: — 
" Some persons, I know, estimate happiness by fine houses, gardens, 
and parks, — others by pictures, horses, money, and various things 
wholly remote from their own species : but when I wish to ascer- 
tain the real felicity of any rational man, I always inquire whom he 
has to love. If I find he has nobody — or does not love those he has 
— even in the midst of all his profusion of finery and grandeur, I 
pronounce him a being in deep adversity." Vol. ii. 84, ed. 1796. 
—Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGEKS. 245 

so struck with it, that he wrote to ask me where it 
was to be found. 



I have heard Crabbe describe his mingled feel- 
ings of hope and fear as he stood on London Bridge, 
when he first came up to town to try his fortune in 
the literary world. 

The situation of domestic chaplain in a great 
family is generally a miserable one : what slights 
and mortifications attend it ! Crabbe had had his 
share of such troubles in the Duke of Rutland's 
family ; and I well remember that, at a London 
evening party, where the old Duchess of Rutland* 
was present, he had a violent struggle with his feel- 
ings before he could prevail on himself to go up and 
pay his respects to her. 

Crabbe, after his literary reputation had been 
established, was staying for a few days at the Old 
Ilummums ; but he was known to the people in the 
coffee-room and to the waiters merely as "a Mr. 
Crabbe." One forenoon, when he had gone out, a 
gentleman called on him, and, while expressing his 
regret at not finding him at home, happened to let 

* In her youth a very celebrated beauty. She died in 1831. — Ed. 



246 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

drop the information that "Mr. Crabbe was the 
celebrated poet." The next time that Crabbe en- 
tered the coffee-room, he was perfectly astonished at 
the sensation which he caused; the company were 
all eagerness to look at him, the waiters all officious - 
ness to serve him. 

Crabbe's early poetry is by far the best, as to 
finish. The conclusion of The Library is charmingly 
written ; 

" Go on, then, son of Vision ! still pursue 
Thy airy dreams— the world is dreaming too. 
Ambition's lofty views, the pomp of state, 
The pride of wealth, the splendours of the great, 
Stripp'd of their mask, their cares and troubles known, 
Are visions far less happy than thy own : 
Go on ! and, while the sons of care complain, 
Be wisely gay and innocently vain ; 
While serious souls are by their fears undone, 
Blow sportive bladders in the beamy sun, 
And call them worlds ! and bid the greatest show 
More radiant colours in their worlds below : 
Then, as they break, the slaves of care reprove, 
And tell them, Such are all the toys they love." 

I asked him why he did not compose his later 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGEKS. 247 

verses with equal care. He answered, " Because my 
reputation is already made." When he afterwards 
told me that he never produced more than forty 
verses a day, I said that he had better do as I do, — 
stint himself to four. 

There is a familiarity in some parts of his Tales 
which makes one smile ; yet it is by no means un- 
pleasing ; for example, — 

" Letters were sent when franks could be procur'd, 
And when they could not, silence was endur'd."* 

Crabbe used often to repeat with praise this 
couplet from Prior's Solomon^ 

" Abra was ready ere I call'd her name, 
And though I call'd another, Abra came." 

It is some where cited by Sir Walter Scott; J and I 
apprehend that Crabbe made it known to him. 



Other statesmen, besides Sir Robert Peel, have 
had very violent things said against them in the 

* The Frank Courtship. — Ed. 
f B.ir.— Ed. 

% Scott quotes it (not quite correctly) in Bob Boy, vol. iii. 324, 
ed. 1818.— Ed. 



248 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

House. Lord North once complained, in a speech, 
of " the brutal language" which Colonel Barre had 
used towards him. — General Tarleton, not indeed in 
the House, but in private among his own party, said 
that " he was glad to see Fox's legs swelled." 

Sir Robert Peel, in one of his communicative 
moods, told me that, when he was a boy, his father 
used to say to him, " Bob, you dog, if you are not 
prime minister some day, I'll disinherit you." I 
mentioned this to Sir Robert's sister, Mrs. Dawson, 
who assured me that she had often heard her father 
use those very words. 



It is curious how fashion changes pronunciation. 
In my youth every body said " Lonnon," not " Lon- 
don:" Fox said " Lonnon" to the last; and so did 
Crowe. The now fashionable pronunciation of seve- 
ral words is to me at least very offensive : ts contem- 
plate" is bad enough ; but " balcony" makes me sick. 



When George Colman brought out his Iron 
Chest, he had not the civility to offer Godwin a box, 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 249 

or even to send him an order for admission, though 
the play was dramatised from Caleb Williams, Of 
this Godwin spoke with great bitterness. — Godwin 
was generally reckoned a disagreeable man ; but I 
must say that / did not consider him such.* 



Ah, the fate of my old acquaintance. Lady Salis- 
bury ! The very morning of the day on w T hich the 
catastrophe occurred, I quitted Hatfield ; and I then 
shook her by the hand, — that hand which was so soon 
to be a cinder. In the evening, after she had been 
dressed for dinner, her maid left her to go to tea. 
She was then writing letters; and it is supposed 
that, having stooped down her head, — for she was 
very short-sighted,— the flame of the candle caught 
her head-dress. Strange enough, but we had all re- 
marked the day before, that Lady Salisbury seemed 

* One evening at Mr. Rogers's, when Godwin was present, the 
conversation turned on novels and romances. The company hav- 
ing agreed that Don Quixote, Tom Jones, and Gil Bias, were un- 
rivalled in that species of composition, Mr. Rogers said, " "Well, 
after these, / go to the sofa" (meaning, " / think that the next 
best are by Godwdn," who happened to be sitting on the sofa). 
Quite unconscious of the compliment paid to him, Godwin exclaimed 
in great surprise, "What! do you admire The Sofa?" (a licen- 
tious novel by the younger Crebillon).— Ed. 



250 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

most unusually depressed in spirits ! — Her eyes, as 
is generally the case with short-sighted persons, 
were so good, that she could read without specta- 
cles : being very deaf, she would often read when 
in company ; and, as she was a bad sleeper, she 
would sometimes read nearly the whole night. 

Lady Salisbury never had any pretensions to 
beauty. In her youth she was dancing in a country- 
dance with the Prince of Wales at a ball given by 
the Duchess of Devonshire, when the Prince sud- 
denly quitted Lady Salisbury, and finished the dance 
with the Duchess. This rude behaviour of his 
Royal Highness drew forth some lines from Captain 
Morris. 

[" Ungallant youth ! could royal Edward see, 

While Salisbury's Garter decks thy faithless knee, 
That thou, false knight ! hadst turn'd thy back, and fled 
From such a Salisbury as might wake the dead ; 
Quick from thy treacherous breast her badge he'd tear, 
And strip the star that beauty planted there."] 



Madame de Stael one day said to me, " How sorry 
1 am for Campbell ! his poverty so unsettles his 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGEES. 251 

mind, that he cannot write." I replied, " Why does 
he not take the situation of a clerk ? he could then 
compose verses during his leisure hours." This an- 
swer was reckoned very cruel both by Madame de 
Stael and Mackintosh : but there was really kindness 
as well as truth in it. When literature is the sole 
business of life, it becomes a drudgery : when we 
are able to resort to it» only at certain hours, it is a 
charming relaxation. In my earlier years I was a 
banker's clerk, obliged to be at the desk every day 
from ten till five o'clock ; and I never shall forget the 
delight with which, on returning home, I used to 
read and write during the evening. 

There are some of Campbell's lyrics which will 
never die. His Pleasures of Hope is no great fa- 
vourite with me.* The feeling throughout his Ger- 

* And it was much less so with Wordsworth, who criticised it 
to me nearly verbatim as follows; nor could his criticism, I appre- 
hend, be easily refuted. " Campbell's Pleasures of Hope has been 
strangely overrated: its fine words and sounding lines please the 
generality of readers, who never stop to ask themselves the meaning 
of a passage. The lines,— 

' Where Andes, giant of the western wave, 
With meteor-standard to the winds unfurPd, 
Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world,' 

are sheer nonsense, — nothing more than a poetical indigestion. 
What has a giant to do with a star? What is a meteor-standard? 



252 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

trude is very beautiful ; and one line, describing 
Gertrude's eyes, is exquisite, — " those eyes," 

" That seerrCd to love whatever they holed upon"* 

But that poem has passages which are monstrously 
incorrect : can any thing be worse in expression 

than — 

iC Love ! in such a wilderness as this, 

Where transport and security entwine, 

Here is the empire of thy perfect bliss, 

And here thou art indeed a god divine" ?f 



I cannot forgive Goethe for certain things in his 
Faust and Wilhelm Meister : the man who appeals 
to the worst part of my nature commits a great 
offence. 



— but it is useless to inquire what such stuff means. Once, at my 
house, Professor Wilson having spoken of those lines with great 
admiration, a very sensible and accomplished lady who happened to 
be present begged him to explain to her their meaniDg. He was 
extremely indignant; and, taking down the Pleasures of Hope from 
a shelf, read the lines aloud, and declared that they were splendid. 
4 Well, sir,' said the lady, * but what do they mean f Dashing the 
book on the floor, he exclaimed in his broad Scottish accent, * I'll 
be daumed if I can tell!' " — Ed. 

* Part ii. st. 4.— Ed. f Part iil st - L- -Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 253 

The talking openly of their own merits is a " mag- 
nanimity" peculiar to foreigners. You remember 
the angry surprise which Lamartine expresses at 
Lady Hester Stanhope's never having heard of him, 
— of him, a person so celebrated over all the world ! 

Lamartine is a man of genius, but very affected. 
Talleyrand (when in London) invited me to meet 
him, and placed me beside him at dinner. I asked 
him, " Are you acquainted with Beranger ?" " Xo ; 
he wished to be introduced to me, but I declined it." 
— "I would go," said I, " a league to see him." 
This was nearly all our conversation : he did not 
choose to talk. In short, he was so disagreeable, 
that, some days after, both Talleyrand and the 
Duchess di Dino apologised to me for his ill-breed- 
ing". 



At present new plays seem hardly to be regarded 
as literature; people may go to see them acted, but 
no one thinks of reading them. During the run of 
Paul Pry, I happened to be at a dinner-party where 
every body was talking about it, — that is, about 
Liston's performance of the hero. I asked first one 
person, then another, and then another, who was the 



254 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

author of it ? Not a man or woman in the company 
knew that it was written by Poole !- 



When people have had misunderstandings with 
each other, and are anxious to be again on good 
terms, they ought never to make attempts at recon- 
ciliation by means of letters,; they should see each 
other. Sir Walter Scott quarrelled with Lady Roslin, 
in consequence, I believe, of some expressions he had 
used about Fox. " If Scott," said she, " instead of 
writing to me on the subject, had only paid me a 
visit, I must have forgiven him." 

There had been for some time a coolness between 
Lord Durham and myself; and I was not a little 
annoyed to find that I was to sit next him at one 
of the Royal Academy dinners : I requested the 
stewards to change my place at the table; but it 
was too late to make any alteration. We sat down. 
Lord Durham took no notice of me. At last I said 
to him, " Will your lordship do me the honour of 
drinking a glass of wine with me ?" He answered, 
" Certainly, on condition that you will come and dine 
with me soon." 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 255 

This is not a bad charade : What is it that causes 
a cold, cures a cold, and pays the doctor ? A draft, 



I hope to read Ariosto through once more before 
I die, if not in the original, in Harington's transla- 
tion, which in some parts is very well done ; in one 
part,-— the story of Jocondo,— admirably, 

Rose's version is so bald,* that it wearies me, I 
read the whole of it, by Rose's desire, in the proof 
sheets,— At one time Rose gave himself up so en- 
tirely to Italian, that he declared " he felt some diffi- 
culty in using his native language. 55 

Once, when Rose complained to me of being un- 
happy " from the recollection of having done many 
things which he wished he had not done," I com- 
forted him by replying, " I know that during your 
life you have done many kind and generous things ; 
but them you have forgotten, because a man's good 
deeds fade arc ay from his memory , while those which 
are the reverse keep constantly recurring to it." 

* Rose's version of Ariosto is sometimes rather flat; but surely 
it is, on the whole, far superior to any other English one. The 
brilliancy and the airy grace of the original are almost beyond the 
reach of a translator, — Ed, 



256 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

He was in a sad state of mental imbecility shortly 
before his death. When people attempted to enter 
into conversation with him, he would continue to 
ask them two questions, — " When did Sir Walter 
Scott die ?" and " How is Lord Holland ?" (who was 
already dead.) But I, aware that no subject is so 
exciting to an author as that of his own writings, 
spoke to Rose about his various publications ; and, 
for a while, he talked of them rationally enough.— 
Partenopex of Blois is his best work. 



Lord Grrenville has more than once said to me at 
Dropmore, " What a frightful mistake it was to send 
such a person as Lord Castlereagh to the Congress of 
Vienna .! a man who was so ignorant, that he did not 
know the map of Europe ; and who could be won 
over to make any concessions by only being asked to 
breakfast with the Emperor." 

Castlereagh's education had been sadly neglected; 
but he possessed considerable talents, and was very 
amiable. 



I have read Gilpin's Life of Cranmer several 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 257 

times through. What an interesting account he 
gives of the manner in which Cranmer passed the 
dayt — I often repeat a part of Cranmer's prayer at 
the stake, — "O blessed Redeemer, who assumed 
not a mortal shape for small offences, who died not 
to atone for venial sins"* Sec. 



I don't call Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver s 
Travels "novels:" they stand quite unrivalled for 
invention among all prose fictions. 

When I was at Banbury, I happened to observe 
in the churchyard several inscriptions to the me- 
mory of persons named Gulliver ; and, on my return 
home, looking into Gulliver's Travels, I found, to 
my surprise, that the said inscriptions are mentioned 
there as a confirmation of Mr. Gulliver's statement 
that " his family came from Oxfordshire." 



I am not sure that I would not rather have writ- 
ten Manzoni's Promessi Sposi than all Scott's novels. 
Manzoni's mother was a daughter of the famous 
Beccaria; and I remember seeing her about sixty 
* P. 211. 
s 



258 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

years ago at the house of the father of the Misses 
Berry : she was a very lively agreeable woman. 



Bowles, like most other poets, was greatly de- 
pressed by the harsh criticisms of the reviewers. I 
advised him not to mind them ; and, eventually fol- 
lowing my advice, he became a much happier man. 
I suggested to him the subject of The Missionary ; 
and he was to dedicate it to me. He, however, 
dedicated it to a noble lord, who never, either by 
word or letter, acknowledged the dedication. 

Bowles's nervous timidity is* the most ridiculous 
thing imaginable. Being passionately fond of music, 

* Wordsworth, Mrs. Wordsworth, their daughter, and Bowles, 
went upon the Thames in a boat, one fine summer's day. Though 
the water was smooth as glass, Bowles very soon became so alarmed, 
that he insisted on being set ashore ; upon which Wordsworth said 
to him, " Your confessing your cowardice is the most striking in- 
stance of valour that I ever met with." This was told to me by 
Wordsworth himself. — IWhat follows is from my Memoranda of 
Wordsworth's conversation. "When Bowles's Sonnets first ap- 
peared, — a thin 4to pamphlet, entitled Fourteen Sonnets, — I bought 
them in a walk through London with my dear brother, who was 
afterwards drowned at sea. I read them as we went along ; and 
to the great annoyance of my brother, I stopped in a niche of 
London Bridge to finish the pamphlet. Bowles's short pieces are 
his best : his long poems are rather flaccid" — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGEKS. 259 

he came to London expressly to attend the last Com- 
memoration of Handel. After going into the Abbey, 
he observed that the door was closed: immediately 
he ran to the doorkeeper, exclaiming, " What ! am 
I to be shut up here ?" and out he went, before he 
had heard a single note. I once bought a stall-ticket 
for him, that he might accompany me to the Opera ; 
but, just as we were stepping into the carriage, he 
said, " Dear me, your horses seem uncommonly 
frisky;" and he stayed at home. 

" I never," said he, " had but one watch ; and I 
lost it the very first day I wore it." Mrs. Bowles 
whispered to me, " And if he got another to-day , he 
would lose it as quickly." 



Major Price* was a great favourite with George 
the Third, and ventured to say any thing to him. 
They were walking together in the grounds at Wind- 
sor Castle, when the following dialogue took place. 
" I shall certainly," said the King, " order this tree 
to be cut down." " If it is cut down, your majesty 
will have destroyed the finest tree about the Castle." 

* Brother to Sir Uvedale Price, and for many years vice-cham- 
berlain to Queen Charlotte.— Ed 9 



260 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

— " Really, it is surprising that people constantly 
oppose my wishes." " Permit me to observe, that 
if your majesty will not allow people to speak, you 
will never hear the truth." — " Well, Price, I believe 
you are right." 

When the Duke of Clarence (William the Fourth) 
was a very young man, he happened to be dining 
at the Equerries' table. Among the company was 
Major Price. The Duke told one of his facetious 
stories. " Excellent !" said Price ; " I wish I could 
believe it." — " If you say that again, Price," cried 
the Duke, "I'll send this claret at your head." Price 
did say it again. Accordingly the claret came, — 
and it was returned. — I had this from Lord St. 
Helens, who was one of the party. 

Once, when in company with William the Fourth, 
I quite forgot that it is against all etiquette to ask a 
sovereign about his health; and, on his saying to 
me, " Mr. Rogers, I hope you are well," I replied, 
" Very well, I thank your majesty : I trust that your 
majesty is quite well also." Never was a king in 
greater confusion ; he didn't know where to look, 
and stammered out, " Yes, — yes, — only a little 
rheumatism." 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGKEKS. 261 

I have several times breakfasted with the Prin- 
cesses at Buckingham House. The Queen (Char- 
lotte) always breakfasted with the King: but she 
would join us afterwards, and read the newspapers 
to us, or converse very agreeably. 



Dining one day with the Princess of Wales 
(Queen Caroline), I heard her say that on her first 
arrival in this country, she could speak only one 
word of English. Soon after, I mentioned that cir- 
cumstance to a large party ; and a discussion arose 
what English word would be most useful for a per- 
son to know, supposing that person's knowledge 
of the language must be limited to a single word. 
The greater number of the company fixed on "Yes." 
But Lady Charlotte Lindsay said that she should 
prefer "No;" because, though "Yes" never meant 
"No,"— "No" very often meant "Yes." 

The Princess was very good-natured and agree- 
able. She once sent to me at four o'clock in the 
afternoon, to say that she was coming to sup with 
me that night. I returned word, that I should feel 
highly honoured by her coming, but that unfortu- 



262 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

nately it was too late to make up a party to meet 
her. She came, however, bringing with her Sir 
William Drummond. 

One night, after dining with her at Kensington 
Palace, I was sitting in the carriage, waiting for Sir 
Henry Englefield to accompany me to town, when a 
sentinel, at about twenty yards' distance from me, 
was struck dead by a flash of lightning. I never 
beheld any thing like that flash : it was a body of 
flame, in the centre of which were quivering zigzag 
fires, such as artists put into the hand of Jupiter ; 
and, after being visible for a moment, it seemed to 
explode. I immediately returned to the hall of the 
Palace, where I found the servants standing in terror, 
with their faces against the wall. 

I was to dine on a certain day with the Princess 
of Wales at Kensington, and, thinking that Ward 
(Lord Dudley) was to be of the party, I wrote to 
him, proposing that we should go together. His 
answer was, " Dear Rogers, I am not invited. The 
fact is, when I dined there last, I made several rather 
free jokes ; and the Princess, taking me perhaps for 
a clergyman, has not asked me back again/' 

One night, at Kensington, I had the Princess for 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGERS. 263 

my partner in a country-dance of fourteen couple. 
I exerted myself to the utmost ; but not quite to 
her satisfaction, for she kept calling out to me, 
"Vite, vite!" 

She was fond of going to public places incog. 
One forenoon, she sent me a note to say that she 
wished me to accompany her that evening to the 
theatre; but I had an engagement which I did not 
choose to give up, and declined accompanying her. 
She took offence at this; and our intercourse was 
broken off till we met in Italy. I was at an inn 
about a stage from Milan, when I saw Queen Caro- 
line's carriages in the court-yard. I kept myself 
quite close, and drew down the blinds of the sitting 
room : but the good-natured Queen found out that 
I was there, and, coming to my window, knocked on 
it with her knuckles. In a moment we were the 
best friends possible ; and there, as afterwards in 
other parts of Italy, I dined and spent the day with 
her. Indeed, I once travelled during a whole night 
in the same carriage with her and Lady Charlotte 
Campbell ; when the shortness of her majesty's legs 
not allowing her to rest them on the seat opposite, 
she wheeled herself round, and very coolly placed 



264 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

them on the lap of Lady Charlotte, who was sitting 
next to her. 



I remember Brighton before the Pavilion was 
built ; and in those days I have seen the Prince of 
Wales drinking tea in a public room of what was 
then the chief inn, just as other people did. 

At a great party given by Henry Hope in Caven- 
dish Square, Lady Jersey* said she had something 
particular to tell me ; so, not to be interrupted, we 
went into the gallery. As we were walking along 
it, we met the Prince of Wales, who, on seeing Lady 
Jersey, stopped for a moment, and then, drawing 
himself up, marched past her with a look of the 

* " The Prince one day said to Colonel Willis, ' I am determined 
to break off my intimacy with Lady Jersey ; and you must deliver 
the letter which announces to her my determination/ When Willis 
put it into Lady Jersey's hand, she said, before opening it, ' You 
have brought me a gilded dagger.' — Willis was on such familiar 
terms with the Prince, that he ventured to give his advice about his 
conduct. ' If your royal highness,' he said, '.would only show your- 
self at the theatre or in the park, in company with the Princess, two 
or three times a year, the public would be quite content, and would 
not trouble themselves about your domestic proceedings.' The 
Prince replied, * Really, Willis, with the exception of Lord Moira, 
nobody ever presumed to speak to me as you do.' The Prince was 
anxious to get rid of Lord Moira ; and hence his lordship's splendid 
banishment. — These anecdotes were told to me by Willis." — Mr. 
Maltbt (see notice prefixed to the Porsoniana in this volume). — Ed, 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 265 

utmost disdain. Lady Jersey returned the look to 
the full ; and, as soon as the Prince was gone, said 
to me with a smile, " Didn't I do it well ?"— I was 
taking a drive w r ith Lady Jersey in her carriage, 
when I expressed (with great sincerity) my regret 
at being unmarried, saying that " if I had a wife, 
I should have somebody to care about me" " Pray, 
Mr. Rogers," said Lady J., " how could you be sure 
that your wife would not care more about somebody 
else than about you ?" 

I was staying at Lord Bathurst's, when he had to 
communicate to the Prince Regent the death of the 
Princess Charlotte. The circumstances were these. 
Lord Bathurst was suddenly roused in the middle of 
the night by the arrival of a messenger to inform him 
that the Princess was dead. After a short consul- 
tation with his family, Lord Bathurst went to the 
Duke of York ; and his royal highness having im- 
mediately dressed himself, they proceeded together 
to Carlton House. On reaching it, they asked to see 
Sir Benjamin Bloomfleld; and telling him what had 
occurred, they begged him to convey the melancholy 
tidings to the Prince Regent. He firmly refused to 
do so. They then begged Sir Benjamin to inform 



266 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

the Prince that they requested to see him on a 
matter of great importance. A message was brought 
back by Sir Benjamin, that the Prince already knew 
all they had to tell him, — viz. that the Princess had 
been delivered, and that the child was dead, — and 
that he declined seeing them at present. They again, 
by means of Sir Benjamin, urged their request ; 
and were at last admitted into the Prince's chamber. 
He was sitting up in bed ; and, as soon as they en- 
tered, he repeated what he had previously said by 
message,— that he already knew all they had to tell 
him, &c. Lord Bathurst then communicated the 
fatal result of the Princess's confinement. On hear- 
ing it, the Prince Regent struck his forehead vio- 
lently with both his hands, and fell forward into the 
arms of the Duke of York. Among other exclama- 
tions which this intelligence drew from him, was, 
" Oh, what will become of that poor man (Prince 
Leopold) !" — Yet, only six or seven hours had elapsed, 
when he was busily arranging all the pageantry for 
his daughter's funeral. 

The Duchess of Buckingham told me that, when 
George the Fourth slept at Stowe in the state bed- 
chamber (which has a good deal of ebony furniture), 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 267 

it was lighted up with a vast number of wax can- 
dles, which were kept burning the whole night. — 
Nobody, I imagine, except a king, has any liking for 
a state bedchamber. I was at Cassiobury with a 
large party, when a gentleman arrived, to whom 
Lord Essex said, " I must put you into the state 
bedroom, as it is the only one unoccupied." The 
gentleman, rather than sleep in it, took up his quar- 
ters at the inn. 

No one had more influence over George the 
Fourth than Sir William Knighton. Lawrence (the 
painter) told me that he was once dining at the 
palace when the King said to Knighton that he was 
resolved to discharge a particular attendant immedi- 
ately. " Sir," replied Knighton, " he is an excellent 
servant." — "I am determined to discharge him," 
said the King. " Sir," replied Knighton, " he is an 
excellent servant." — "Well, well," said the King, 
" let him remain till I think further of it." — Speak- 
ing of Knighton to an intimate friend, George the 
Fourth remarked, " My obligations to Sir William 
Knighton are greater than to any man alive : he has 
arranged all my accounts, and brought perfect order 
out of chaos." 



268 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

One day when George the Fourth was talking 
about his youthful exploits, he mentioned, with par- 
ticular satisfaction, that he had made a body of 
troops charge down the Devil's Dyke (near Brigh- 
ton). Upon which the Duke of Wellington merely 
observed to him, C( Very steep, sir." 

I was told by the Duchess-Countess of Suther- 
land what Sir Henry Halford had told her, — that, 
when George the Fourth was very near his end, he 
said to him, " Pray, Sir Henry, keep these women 
from me" (alluding to certain ladies). 



I'll tell you an anecdote of Napoleon, which I 
had from Talleyrand. " Napoleon," said T., " was 
at Boulogne with the Army of England, when he re- 
ceived intelligence that the Austrians, under Mack, 
were at Ulm. ' If it had been mine to place them,' 
exclaimed Napoleon, ' I should have placed them 
there.' In a moment the army was on the march, 
and he at Paris. I attended him to Strasburg. We 
were there at the house of the Prefet, and no one 
in the room but ourselves, when Napoleon was sud- 
denly seized with a fit, foaming at the mouth; he 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL BOOKERS. 269 

cried ( Fermez la porte !' and then lay senseless on 
the floor. I bolted the door. Presently, Berthier 
knocked. ' On ne peut pas entrer.' Afterwards, 
the Empress knocked ; to whom I addressed the 
same words. Now, what a situation would mine 
have been, if Napoleon had died ! But he recovered 
in about half an hour. Next morning, by day- 
break, he was in his carriage ; and within sixty hours 
the Austrian army had capitulated." 

I repeated the anecdote to Lucien Buonaparte,* 
who listened with great sang froid. " Did you ever 
hear this before ?" " Never : but many great men 
have been subject to fits ; for instance, Julius Caesar. 
My brother on another occasion had an attack of the 
same kind ; but that" (and he smiled) (( was after 
being defeated. "f 

On my asking Talleyrand if Napoleon was really 
married to Josephine, he replied, " Pas tout-a-fait." 

I asked him which was the best portrait of Na- 

* Mr. Eogers was very intimate with Lucien, and liked him 
much ; yet he could not resist occasionally laughing at some things 
in his Charlemagne; for instance, at, — 

" L'ange maudit admire et contemple Judas." 

c. ix. 37.— Ed. 

f An allusion to an adventure with an actress. — Ed. 



270 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

poleon. He said, " That which represents him at 
Malmaison : it is by Isabey. The marble bust of 
Napoleon by Canova, which I gave to A. Baring, is 
an excellent likeness." 

" Did Napoleon shave himself ?" I inquired. 
" Yes," answered Talleyrand, " but very slowly, and 
conversing during the operation. He used to say 
that kings by birth were shaved by others, but that 
he who has made himself Roi shaves himself." 

To my question — whether the despatch which 
Napoleon published on his retreat from Moscow was 
written by Napoleon himself, — Talleyrand replied, 
" By himself, certainly." 



Dr. Lawrence assured me that Burke shortened 
his life by the frequent use of emetics, — " he was 
always tickling his throat with a feather." He com- 
plained of an oppression at his chest, w T hich he fan- 
cied emetics would remove. 

Malone (than whom no one was more intimate 
with Burke) persisted to the last in saying that, if 
Junius s Letters were not written by Burke, they 
were at least written by some person who had re- 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 271 

ceived great assistance from Burke in composing 
them; and he was strongly inclined to fix the au- 
thorship of them upon Dyer.* Burke had a great 
friendship for Dyer, whom he considered to be a 
man of transcendent abilities ; and it was reported, 
that, upon Dyer's death, Burke secured and sup- 
pressed all the papers which he had left behind him. 

I once dined at Dilly's in company with Wood- 
fall, who then declared in the most positive terms 
that he did not know who Junius was. 

A story appeared in the newspapers that an un- 
known individual had died at Marlborough, and that, 
in consequence of his desire expressed just before 
his death, the word Junius had been placed over his 
grave. Now, Sir James Mackintosh and I, hap- 
pening to be at Marlborough, resolved to inquire 
into the truth of this story. We accordingly went 
into the shop of a bookseller, a respectable-looking 
old man with a velvet cap, and asked him what he 

* Samuel Dyer. See an account of him in Malone's Life of 
Dry den, p. 181, where he is mentioned as " a man of excellent taste 
and profound erudition; whose principal literary work, under a Roman 
signature, when the veil with which for near thirty-one years it has 
been enveloped shall be removed, will place him in a high rank 
among English writers, and transmit a name, now little known, 
with distinguished lustre to posterity." — Ed. 



272 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

knew about it. "I have heard" said he, " that a 
person was buried here with that inscription on his 
grave ; but I have not seen it." He then called 
out to his daughter, " What do you know about it, 
Nan ?" " I have heard," replied Nan, " that there 
is such a grave ; but I have not seen it," We next 
applied to the sexton ; and his answer was, " I have 
heard of such a grave ; but I have not seen it." Nor 
did we see it, you may be sure, though we took the 
trouble of going into the churchyard.* 

My own impression is, that the Letters of Junius 
were written by Sir Philip Francis. In a speech, 
which I once heard him deliver, at the Mansion 
House, concerning the Partition of Poland, I had 
a striking proof that Francis possessed no ordinary 
powers of eloquence. 



I was one day conversing with Lady Holland in 

* A friend observed to me, — " Mr. Eogers and Sir James 
should have gone, not to Marlborough, but to Hungerford; and 
there they would have found a tomb with this inscription, Stat 
nominis umbra ; which is the motto of Junius ; and hence the tomb 
is called Junius's tomb." I mentioned this to Mr. Kogers, who said, 
" It may be so; but what I told you about our inquiries at Marl- 
borough is fact; and a good story it is." — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 273 

her dressing-room, when Sir Philip Francis was an- 
nounced. " Now/' she said, " I will ask him if he 
is Junius." I was about to withdraw ; but she in- 
sisted on my staying. Sir Philip entered, and, soon 
after he was seated, she put the question to him. 
His answer was, " Madam, do you mean to insult 
me ?" — and he went on to say, that when he was a 
younger man, people would not have ventured to 
charge him with being the author of those Let- 
ters.* 

When Lady Holland wanted to get rid of a fop, 
she used to say, " I beg your pardon, — but I wish 
you would sit a little further off ; there is something 
on your handkerchief which I don't quite like." 

When any gentleman, to her great annoyance, 
was standing with his back close to the chimney- 
piece, she would call out, " Have the goodness, sir, 
to stir the fire !" 

* The following notice must be referred, I presume, to an 
earlier occasion. "Brougham was by when Francis made the 
often-quoted answer to Eogers — 'There is a question, Sir Philip 
(said K.), which I should much like to ask, if you will allow me.' 
* You had better not, sir (answered Francis) ; you may have reason 
to be sorry for it (or repent of it).' The addition [by the news- 
papers] to this story is, that Rogers, on leaving him, muttered 
to himself, 'If he is Junius, it must be Junius Brutus" Moore's 
Memoirs, &c. vol. vi. 66.— Ed. 

T 



274 KECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Her delight was to conquer all difficulties that 
might oppose her will. Near Tunbridge there is (at 
least, there was) a house which no stranger was al- 
lowed to see. Lady Holland never ceased till she 
got permission to inspect it ; and through it she 
marched in triumph, taking a train of people with 
her, even her maid. 

When she and Lord Holland were at Naples, 
Murat and his Queen used to have certain evenings 
appointed for receiving persons of distinction. Lady 
Holland would not go to those royal parties. At 
last Murat, who was always anxious to conciliate the 
English government, gave a concert expressly in 
honour of Lady Holland ; and she had the gratifica- 
tion of sitting, at that concert^ between Murat and 
the Queen, when, no doubt, she applied to them her 
screw, — that is, she fairly asked them about every 
thing which she wished to know. — By the by, Murat 
and his Queen were extremely civil to me. The 
Queen once talked to me about The Pleasures of 
Memory. I often met Murat when he was on horse- 
back, and he would invariably call out to me, rising 
in his stirrups, "He bien, Monsieur, etes-vous in- 
spire aujourdhui ?" 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 275 

Lord Holland never ventured to ask any one to 
dinner (not even me, whom he had known so long 
and so intimately) without previously consulting 
Lady H. Shortly before his death, 1 called at Hol- 
land House, and found only Lady H. within. As 
I was coming out, I met Lord Holland, who said, 
"Well, do you return to dinner?" I answered, 
" No ; I have not been invited." — Perhaps this de- 
ference to Lady H.* was not to be regretted; for 
Lord Holland was so hospitable and good-natured, 
that, had he been left to himself, he would have had 
a crowd at his table daily. 

What a disgusting thing is the fagging at our 
great schools! When Lord Holland was a school- 
boy, he was forced, as a fag, to toast bread with his 
fingers for the breakfast of another boy. Lord H.'s 
mother sent him a toasting-fork. His fagger broke 
it over his head, and still compelled him to prepare 
the toast in the old way. In consequence of this 

* Lady Holland was not among Mr. Rogers's earliest acquaint- 
ances in the great world. — Mr. Richard Sharp once said to him. 
" When do you mean to give up the society of Lady Jersey?" Mr. 
Rogers replied, " When you give up that of Lady Holland,"— little 
thinking then that she was eventually to be one of his own most 
intimate friends. — Ed. 



276 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

process his fingers suffered so much that they always 
retained a withered appearance. 

Lord Holland persisted in saying that pictures 
gave him more pain than pleasure. He also hated 
music ; yet, in some respects, he had a very good 
ear, for he was a capital mimic. 



What a pity it is that Luttrell gives up nearly 
his whole time to persons of mere fashion ! Every 
thing that he has written is very clever.* Are you 
acquainted with his epigram on Miss Tree (Mrs. 
Bradshaw) ? it is quite a little fairy tale ; — 

" On this tree when a nightingale settles and sings, 
The tree will return her as good as she brings." 

Luttrell is indeed a most pleasant companion. 
None of the talkers whom I meet in London society 
can slide in a brilliant thing with such readiness as 
he does. 



I w r as one day not a little surprised at being told 
by Moore that, in consequence of the article on his 

* See his Letters to Julia and Crochford House. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 277 

Poems in The Edinburgh Review * he had called out 
Jeffrey, who at that time was in London. He asked 
me to lend him a pair of pistols : I said, and truly, 
that I had none.f Moore then went to William 
Spencer to borrow pistols, and to talk to him about 
the duel; and Spencer, who was delighted with this 
confidence, did not fail to blab the matter to Lord 
Fincastle,^ and also, I believe, to some women of 
rank. — I was at Spencer's house in the forenoon, 
anxious to learn the issue of the duel, when a mes- 
senger arrived with the tidings that Moore and 
Jeffrey were in custody, and with a request from 
Moore that Spencer would bail him. Spencer did 
not seem much inclined to do so, remarking that 
u he could not well go out, for it was already twelve 
o'clock, and he had to be dressed by four!" So I 
went to Bow Street and bailed Moore. § — The ques- 

* Vol. viii. 456.— Ed. 

f " William Spencer being the only one of all my friends whom I 
thought likely to furnish me with these sine-qua-nons [pistols], I 
hastened to confide to him my wants," &c. Moore's Memoirs, &c. 
vol. i. 202. But Moore's recollection of the particulars connected 
with the duel was somewhat imperfect: see the next note but one. 
—Ed. 

% Afterwards Lord Dunmore. — Ed. 

§ " Though I had sent for William Spencer, I am not quite sure 
that it was he that acted as my bail, or whether it was not Rogers 



278 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

tion now was, whether Moore and Jeffrey should still 
fight or not. I secretly consulted General Fitz- 
patrick, who gave it as his decided opinion that 
" Mr. Jeffrey was not called upon to accept a second 
challenge," insinuating, of course, that Moore was 
bound to send one. I took care not to divulge what 
the General had said : and the poet and critic were 
eventually reconciled by means of Horner and my- 
self : they shook hands with each other in the garden 
behind my house. 

So heartily has Moore repented of having pub- 
lished Little's Poems, that I have seen him shed 
tears, — tears of deep contrition, — when we were 
talking of them. 

Young ladies read his Lalla Rookh without being 
aware (I presume) of the grossness of The Veiled 
Prophet. These lines by Mr. Sneyd are amusing 
enough ; 

" Lalla Rookh 
Is a naughty book 
By Tommy Moore, 
Who has written four, 

that so officiated. I am, however, certain that the latter joined us 
at the office," &c. Moore's Memoirs, &c. vol. i. 205. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL SOGERS. 279 

Each warmer 
Than the former, 
So the most recent 
Is the least decent.' 5 

Moore borrowed from me Lord Thurlow's Poems, 
and forthwith wrote that ill-natured article on them 
in The Edinburgh Review.* It made me angry; for 
Lord ThurloWj with all his eccentricity, was a man 
of genius : but the public chose to laugh at him, and 
Moore, who always follows the world's opinion, of 
course did so too. — I like Lord Thurlow's verses on 
Sidney, f 

* Vol. xxiii. 411. —Ed. 

f I know not which of Lord Thurlow's pieces on Sidney (for 
there are several) was alluded to by Mr. Eogers. One of them is, — 
On beholding the portraiture of Sir Philip Sidney in the gallery at 
Penshurst; 

" The man that looks, sweet Sidney, in thy face, 
Beholding there love's truest majesty, 
And the soft image of departed grace, 
Shall fill his mind with magnanimity ; 
There may he read unfeign'd humility, 
And golden pity, born of heavenly brood, 
Unsullied thoughts of immortality, 
And musing virtue, prodigal of blood: 
Yes, in this map of what is fair and good, 
This glorious index of a heavenly book, 
Not seldom, as in youthful years he stood, 
Divinest Spenser would admiring look; 



280 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

Moore once said to me, (t I am much fonder of 
reading works in prose than in verse." I replied, 
" I should have known so from your writings ;" and 
I meant the words as a compliment : — his best poems 
are quite original. 

Moore is a very worthy man, but not a little im- 
provident. His excellent wife contrives to maintain 
the whole family on a guinea a-week ; and he, when 
in London, thinks nothing of throwing away that 
sum weekly on hackney-coaches and gloves. I said 
to him, " You must have made ten thousand pounds 
by your musical publications." He replied, " More 
than that." In short, he has received for his various 
works nearly thirty thousand pounds. When, owing 
to the state of his affairs, he found it necessary to 
retire for a while, I advised him to make Holyrood 
House his refuge : there he could have lived cheaply 
and comfortably, with permission to walk about un- 
molested every Sunday, when he might have dined 
with Walter Scott or Jeffrey. But he would go to 

And, framing thence high wit and pure desire, 
Imagin'd deeds that set the world on fire." — 

Let me add, that Lord Thurlow's sonnet To a bird that haunted the 
v-aters of Laken in the winter was a favourite with Charles Lamb. — 
Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL EOGEES. 281 

Paris ; and there he spent about a thousand a- 
year. 

At the time when Moore was struggling with his 
grief for the loss of his children, he said to me, 
" What a wonderful man that Shakespeare is ! how 
perfectly I now feel the truth of his words,— 

" And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 
'Tis that I may not weep" ! 

I happened to repeat to Mrs. N. what Moore had 
said ; upon which she observed, " Why, the passage 
is not Shakespeare's, but Byron's." And sure enough 
we found it in Don Juan.* Another lady, who was 
present, having declared that she did not understand 
it, I said, " I will give you an illustration of it. A 
friend of mine was chiding his daughter. She laugh- 
ed. 6 Now,' continued the father, ' you make mat- 

* C. iv. 4. (Moore had forgotten that he had quoted the passage 
as Byron's in his Life of Byron). — Richardson had said the same 
thing long ago : — " Indeed, it is to this deep concern that my levity 
is owing : for I struggle and struggle, and try to buffet down my 
cruel reflections as they rise; and when I cannot, / am forced, as I 
have often said, to try to make myself laugh, that I may not cry ; for 
one or other I must do: and is it not philosophy carried to the 
highest pitch, for a man to conquer such tumults of soul as I am 
sometimes agitated by, and, in the very height of the storm, to be 
able to quaver out an horse-laugh ?" Clarissa Harlowe, Letter 84, 
vol. vii. 319.— Ed. 



282 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

ters worse by laughing.* She then burst into tears, 
exclaiming, ' If I do not laugh, I must cry.' " 

Moore has now taken to an amusement w T hich is 
very well suited to the fifth act of life; — he plays 
cribbage every night with Mrs. Moore. 



In the Memoir of Cary by his son, Coleridge is 
said to have first become acquainted with Cary's 
Dante when he met the translator at Little Hamp- 
ton. But that is a mistake. Moore mentioned the 
work to me with great admiration ; I mentioned it to 
Wordsworth ;* and he to Coleridge, who had never 
heard of it till then, and who forthwith read it. 

I was present at that lecture by Coleridge, dur- 
ing which he spoke of Cary's Dante in high terms 
of praise : there were about a hundred and twenty 
persons in the room. But I doubt if that did much 
towards making it known. It owes some of its cele- 
brity to me ; for the article on Dante in The Edin- 
burgh Review^ which was written by Foscolo, has 

* Wordsworth once remarked to me, " It is a disgrace to the 
age that Cary has no church -preferment; I think his translation of 
Dante a great national work." — Ed. 

f Vol. xxix. 453.— Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 283 

very considerable additions by Mackintosh, and a 
few by myself. Gary was aware (though his bio- 
grapher evidently is not) that I had written a por- 
tion of that article ; yet he never mentioned it to 
me : perhaps there was something in it which he did 
not like. 

On the resignation of Baber, chief librarian at 
the British Museum, I wrote a letter to the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, urging Gary's claim to fill the 
vacant place.* The Archbishop replied, that his 
only reason for not giving Gary his vote was the un- 
fortunate circumstance of Cary's having been more 
than once, in consequence of domestic calamities, 
afflicted with temporary alienation of mind.f I had 
quite forgotten this ; and I immediately wrote again 
to the Archbishop, saying that I now agreed w T ith 
him concerning Cary's unfitness for the situation. 
I also, as delicately as I could, touched on the 
subject to Gary himself, telling him that the place 
was not suited for him. 

* Cary, as assistant-librarian, stood next in succession.— Ed. 

f It appears, however, from the Memoir cf Cary by his son 
(vol. ii. 285), that afterwards, the Archbishop, in consequence of a 
medical certificate of Cary's fitness for the office, was desirous that 
he should be appointed, "but could not prevail on his co-trustees 
to concur with hinv'—ED. 



284 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

After another gentleman had been appointed 
Baber's successor, the trustees of the Museum re- 
commended Gary to the Government for a pension, 
— which they seemed resolved not to grant; and I 
made more than one earnest application to them 
in his behalf, At last Lord Melbourne sent Lord 
E, to me with a message that u there was very little 
money to dispose of, but that Cary should have 100/. 
per annum." I replied that " it was so small a sum, 
that I did not choose to mention the offer to Cary ; 
and that, as soon as Sir Robert Peel came into 
office, I should apply to him for a larger sum, with 
confident hopes of better success." Lord Mel- 
bourne then let me know that Cary should have 
200/. a-year ; which I accepted for him. 

Cary never forgave me for my conduct in the 
Museum business ; and never afterwards called upon 
me. But I met him one day in the Park, when he 
said (much to his credit, considering his decided poli- 
tical opinions) that " he was better pleased to receive 
200/. a-year from Lord Melbourne than double the 
sum from Sir Robert Peel." 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGEES. 285 

Visiting Lady one day, I made inquiries 

about her sister. " She is now staying with me," 
answered Lady — — , " but she is unwell in conse- 
quence of a fright which she got on her way from 
Richmond to London." At that time omnibuses 
were great rarities ; and while Miss - — — was coming 
to town, the footman, observing an omnibus approach, 
and thinking that she might like to see it, suddenly 
called in at the carriage-window, " Ma'am, the om- 
nibus!" Miss , being unacquainted with the 

term, and not sure but an omnibus might be a wild 
beast escaped from the Zoological Gardens, was 
thrown into a dreadful state of agitation by the an- 
nouncement. 



I think Sheridan Knowles by far the best writer 
of plays since those whom we call our old dramatists. 
— Macready's performance of Tell (in Knowles's 
William Tell) is first-rate. No actor ever affected 
me more than Macready did in some scenes of that 
Play. 



Words cannot do justice to Theodore Hook 9 s 
talent for improvisation : it was perfectly wonderful. 



286 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

He was one day sitting at the pianoforte, singing an 
extempore song as fluently as if he had had the 
words and music before him, when Moore happened 
to look into the room, and Hook instantly intro- 
duced a long parenthesis, 

" And here's Mr. Moore, 
Peeping in at the door/' &c. — 

The last time I saw Hook was in the lobby of Lord 
Canterbury's house after a large evening party there. 
He was walking up and down, singing with great 
gravity, to the astonishment of the footmen, " Shep- 
herds, I have lost my hatT 



When Erskine was made Lord Chancellor, Lady 
Holland never rested till she prevailed on him to 
give Sidney Smith a living/* Smith went to thank 
him for the appointment. " Oh," said Erskine, 
" don't thank me, Mr. Smith. I gave you the living 
because Lady Holland insisted on my doing so : and 
if she had desired me to give it to the devil, he must 
have had it." 

* The living of Foston-le-Clay in Yorkshire. — Ed. 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 287 

At one time, when I gave a dinner, I used to 
have candles placed all round the dining-room, and 
high up, in order to show off the pictures. I asked 
Smith how he liked that plan. " Not at all," he 
replied ; " above, there is a blaze of light, and below, 
nothing but darkness and gnashing of teeth." 

He said that — — was so fond of contradiction 
that he would throw up the window in the middle 
of the night, and contradict the watchman who was 
calling the hour. 

When his physician advised him to " take a w T alk 
upon an empty stomach," Smith asked, u Upon 
whose ?" 

" Lady Cork," said Smith, " was once so moved 
by a charity sermon, that she begged me to lend her 
a guinea for her contribution. I did so. She never 
repaid me, and spent it on herself." 

He said that "his idea of heaven was eating fois 
gras to the sound of trumpets."* 

" I had a very odd dream last night," said he ; 
" I dreamed that there were thirty -nine Muses and 

* It must not be supposed from this and other such-like quaint 
fancies, in which he occasionally indulged, that Smith's wit had 
any mixture of profaneness : — he certainly never intended to treat 
sacred things with levity. —Ed. 



288 EECOLLECTIONS OF THE 

nine Articles : and my head is still quite confused 
about them." 

Smith said, " The Bishop of is so like 

Judas, that I now firmly believe in the Apostolical 
Succession." 

Witty as Smith was, I have seen him at my 
own house absolutely overpowered by the superior 
facetiousness of William Bankes. 



Speaking to me of Buonaparte, the Duke of 
Wellington remarked, that in one respect he was 
superior to all the generals who had ever existed. 
" Was it," I asked, " in the management and skilful 
arrangement of his troops?" — " No," answered the 
Duke ; " it was in his power of concentrating such 
vast masses of men, — a most important point in the 
art of war." 

" I have found," said the Duke, " that raw troops, 
however inferior to the old ones in manoeuvring, are 
far superior to them in downright hard fighting with 
the enemy : at Waterloo, the young ensigns and 
lieutenants, who had never before seen a battle, 
rushed to meet death as if they had been playing at 
cricket." 



TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL KOGEKS. 289 

The Duke thinks very highly of Napier's History : 
its only fault, he says, is — that Napier is sometimes 
apt to convince himself that a thing must be true, be- 
cause he wishes to believe it.— Of Southey's History 
he merely said, " I don't think much of it." 

Of the Duke's perfect coolness on the most try- 
ing occasions, Colonel Gurwood gave me this in- 
stance. He was once in great danger of being 
drowned at sea. It was bed-time, when the captain 
of the vessel came to him, and said, " It will soon 
be all over with us." — "Very well," answered the 
Duke, " then I shall not take off my boots." 

Some years ago, walking with the Duke in Hyde 
Park, I observed, u What a powerful band Lord 
John Russell will have to contend with ! there's Peel, 
Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham," &c. The Duke 
interrupted me by saying, "Lord John Russell is a 
host in himself." — It is mainly to the noble consist- 
ency of his whole career that Lord John owes the 
high place which he holds in the estimation of the 
people. 

The Duke says that the Lord's Prayer alone is 
an evidence of the truth of Christianity,— so admir- 
ably is that prayer accommodated to all our wants.— 

u 



290 TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 

I took the Sacrament with the Duke at Strathfield- 
saye ; and nothing could be more striking than his 
unaffected devotion. 



When I was at Paris, I went to Alexis, and de- 
sired him to describe to me my house in St. James's 
Place. On my word, he astonished me ! He de- 
scribed most exactly the peculiarities of the stair- 
case,— said that not far from the window in the 
drawing-room there was a picture of a man in 
armour (the painting by Giorgone), &c. &c. 

Colonel Gurwood, shortly before his death, as- 
sured me that he was reminded by Alexis of some 
circumstances which had happened to him in Spain, 
and which he could not conceive how any human 
being, except himself, should know. 

Still, I cannot believe in clairvoyance,— because 
the thing is impossible. 



POESONIANA. 



The following anecdotes of Person* were communicated 
to me, in conversation, at various times, by the late Mr. 
William Maltby, — the schoolfellow, and, throughout life, 
the most confidential friend of Mr. Eogers. 

In his youth Mr. Maltby was entered at Cambridge, 
and resided there for some time : he, however, left the 
university without taking a degree. He afterwards prac- 
tised as a solicitor in London. On the decease of Porson, 
he obtained an employment more suited to his tastes and 
habits than the profession of the law: — in 1809 he suc- 
ceeded that celebrated man as Principal Librarian to the 
London Institution; and, during the long period of his 
holding the office, he greatly improved the library by the 
numerous judicious purchases which were made at his 
suggestion. In 1834 he was superannuated from all 
duty: but he still continued to occupy apartments in 
the Institution; and there he died, towards the close of 
his ninetieth year, January 5th, 1854, 

In Greek and Latin Mr. Maltby was what is called a 

* Xotices of Porson have already occurred in this volume : see 
pp. 79, 134, 217, '218, 219.— Ed, 



294 

fair scholar : he was well read in Italian ; his acquaintance 
with French and English literature was most extensive and 
accurate ; in a knowledge of bibliography he has been 
surpassed by few : and the wonder was (as Mr. Eogers 
used frequently to observe) that, with all his devotion to 
study, and with all his admiration of the makers of books, 
he should never have come before the public in the cha- 
racter of an author. 

EDITOR. 



PORSONIANA. 



I first saw Porson at the sale of Toup's library in 
1784, and was introduced to him soon after. I was 
on the most intimate terms with him for the last 
twenty years of his life. In spite of all his faults 
and failings, it was impossible not to admire his in- 
tegrity and his love of truth. 

Porson declared that he learned nothing while 
a schoolboy at Eton. " Before I went there," he 
said, " I could nearly repeat by heart all the books 
which we used to read in the school." The only 
thing in his Eton course which he recollected with 
pleasure was — rat-hunting! he used to talk with 
delight of the rat-hunts in the Long Hall. 



296 POBSONIANA. 

During the earlier part of his career, he accepted 
the situation of tutor to a young gentleman in the 
Isle of Wight ; but he was soon forced to relinquish 
that office, in consequence of having been found 
drunk in a ditch or a turnip-field. 

The two persons to whom Porson had the great- 
est obligations were Sir George Baker, and Dr. Ship- 
ley, Bishop of St. Asaph. Sir George once ventured 
to chide him for his irregularities, — a liberty which 
Porson resented, and never forgave,* though he owed 
Sir George so much. 

Porter was his favourite beverage at breakfast. 
One Sunday morning meeting Dr. Goodall (Provost 
of Eton), he said, " Where are you going ?" " To 
church.'— " Where is Mrs. Goodall ?" " At break- 
fast." — " Very well ; I'll go and breakfast with her." 
Porson accordingly presented himself before Mrs. 
Goodall ; and being asked what he chose to take, he 
said " porter." It was sent for, pot after pot ; and 
the sixth pot was just being carried into the house 
when Dr. Goodall returned from church. 

* This seems to account for the statement in Beloe's Sexage- 
narian (i. 234), viz. that Porson " all at once ceased to go to Sir 
George Baker's house, and from what motive Sir George always 
avowed himself ignorant." — Ed. 



POESONIANA. ' 297 

At one period of his life he was in such strait- 
ened circumstances, that he would go without dinner 
for a couple of days. However, when a dinner came 
in his way, he would eat very heartily (mutton 
was his favourite dish), and lay in, as he used to 
say, a stock of provision. He has subsisted for three 
weeks upon a guinea. 

Sometimes, at a later period, when he was able 
enough to pay for a dinner, he chose, in a fit of ab- 
stinence, to go without one. I have asked him to 
stay and dine with me ; and he has replied, " Thank 
you, no; I dined yesterday." 

At dinner, and after it, he preferred port to any 
other wine. He disliked both tea and coffee. 

Porson would sit up drinking all night, without 
seeming to feel any bad effects from it. Home 
Tooke told me that he once asked Porson to dine 
with him in Richmond Buildings ; and, as he knew 
that Porson had not been in bed for the three pre- 
ceding nights, he expected to get rid of him at a 
tolerably early hour. Porson, however, kept Tooke 
up the whole night ; and in the morning, the latter, 
in perfect despair, said, " Mr. Porson, I am engaged 
to meet a friend at breakfast at a coffee-house in 



298 PORSONIANA. 

Leicester Square." — " Oh," replied Porson, " I will 
go with you ;" and he accordingly did so. Soon 
after they had reached the coffee-house, Tooke con- 
trived to *slip out, and running home, ordered his 
servant not to let Mr. Porson in, even if he should 
attempt to batter down the door. " A man," ob- 
served Tooke, " who could sit up four nights succes- 
sively might have sat up forty."* 

Tooke used to say that " Porson would drink ink 
rather than not drink at all." Indeed, he would 
drink any thing. He was sitting with a gentleman, 
after dinner, in the chambers of a mutual friend, a 
Templar, who was then ill and confined to bed. A 
servant came into the room, sent thither by his mas- 
ter for a bottle of embrocation which was on the 
chimney-piece. " I drank it an hour ago," said 
Porson. 

When Hoppner the painter was residing in a 

* In Stephens's Memoirs of Home Tooke, vol. ii. 315, is an ac- 
count of Porson's rudeness to Tooke while dining with him one day 
at Wimbledon, and of Tooke's silencing and triumphing over him 
by making him dead drunk with brandy ; on which occasion " some 
expressions of a disagreeable nature are said to have occurred at 
table."— At that dinner Tooke (as he told Mr, Maltby) asked Por- 
son for a toast ; and Porson replied, " I will give you — the man who 
is in all respects the very reverse of John Home Tooke." — Ed. 



PORSOXIAXA. '299 

cottage a few miles from London, Porson, one af- 
ternoon, unexpectedly arrived there. Hoppner said 
that he could not offer him dinner, as Mrs. H. had 
gone to town, and had carried with her the key of 
the closet which contained the wine. Porson, how- 
ever, declared that he would be content with a 
mutton-chop, and beer from the next alehouse ; and 
accordingly staved to dine. During the evening Por- 
son said, " I am quite certain that Mrs. Hoppner 
keeps some nice bottle, for her private drinking, in 
her own bedroom ; so, pray, try if you can lay your 
hands on it." His host assured him that Mrs. H. 
had no such secret stores ; but Porson insisting that 
a search should be made, a bottle was at last dis- 
covered in the lady's apartment, to the surprise of 
Hoppner, and the joy of Porson, who soon finished 
its contents, pronouncing it to be the best gin he had 
tasted for a long time. Next day, Hoppner, some- 
what out of temper, informed his wife that Porson 
had drunk every drop of her concealed dram. 
" Drunk every drop of it !" cried she ; i( my God, it 
was spirits of wine for the lamp !" 

A brother of Bishop Maltby invited Porson and 
myself to spend the evening at his house, and secretly 



300 PORSONIANA. 

requested me to take Porson away, if possible, be- 
fore the morning hours. Accordingly, at twelve 
o'clock I held up my watch to Porson, saying, " I 
think it is now full time for us to go home ;" and the 
host, of course, not pressing us to remain longer, 
away we went. When we got into the street Por- 
son's indignation burst forth : " I hate," he said, 
" to be turned out of doors like a dog." 

At the house of the same gentleman I introduced 
Cogan to Porson, saying, *■• This is Mr. Cogan,* who 
is passionately fond of what you have devoted your- 
self to, — Greek." Porson replied, " If Mr. Cogan 
is passionately fond of Greek, he must be content 
to dine on bread and cheese for the remainder of his 
life." 

Gurney (the Baron) had chambers in Essex 
Court, Temple, under Porson's. One night (or 
rather, morning) Gurney was awakened by a tre- 
mendous thump in the chambers above. Porson 
had just come home dead drunk, and had fallen on 
the floor. Having extinguished his candle in the 

* Not the Bath physician and author Thomas Cogan, — but Eliezer 
Cogan, a dissenting clergyman who kept a school at Walthamstow, 
and published Moschi Idyllia tria with Latin notes, some Sermons, 
&c— Ed. 



PORSONIANA. 301 

fall, he presently staggered down stairs to relight it ; 
and Gurney heard him keep dodging and poking 
with the candle at the staircase-lamp for about five 
minutes, and all the while very lustily cursing the 
nature of things. 

Porson was fond of smoking, and said that when 
smoking began to go out of fashion, learning began 
to go out of fashion also. 

He was generally ill dressed and dirty. But I 
never saw him such a figure as he was one day at 
Leigh and Sotheby's auction-room : he evidently 
had been roiling in the kennel ; and, on inquiry, 
I found that he was just come from a party (at 
Robert Heathcote's, I believe), with whom he had 
been sitting up drinking for two nights. 

One forenoon I met Porson in Covent Garden, 
dressed in a pea-green coat : he had been married* 
that morning, as I afterwards learned from Raine, 
for he himself said nothing about it. He was carry- 
ing a copy of Le Moyen de Parvenir* which he had 
just purchased off a stall ; and holding it up, he 

* "In 1795, R. P. married Mrs. Lunan, who sunk under a 
decline in 1797." Kidd's Life of Porson, p. xy. She was sister to 
Perry, editor of The Morning Chronicle. — Ed, 



302 POBSONIANA. 

called out jokingly, " These are the sort of books 
to buy !" 

" I was occupied two years," said Porson, " in 
composing the Letters to Travis: I received thirty 
pounds for them from Egerton ; and I am glad to 
find that he lost sixteen by the publication." He 
once talked of writing an Appendix to that work.- — 
In his later years he used to regret that he had de- 
voted so much time to the study of theology. 

Soon after the Letters to Travis were published, 
Gibbon wrote a note to Porson, requesting the plea- 
sure of his acquaintance. Porson accordingly called 
upon the great historian, who received him with all 
kindness and respect. In the course of conversation 
Gibbon said, " Mr, Porson, I feel truly indebted to 
you for the Letters to Travis, though I must think 
that occasionally, while praising me, you have min- 
gled a little acid with the sweet. If ever you should 
take the trouble to read my History over again, I 
should be much obliged and honoured by any re- 
marks on it which might suggest themselves to you." 
Porson was highly flattered by Gibbon's having re- 
quested this interview, and loved to talk of it. He 
thought the Decline and Fall beyond all compari- 



PORSONIANA. 303 

son the greatest literary production of the eighteenth 
century, and was in the habit of repeating long pas- 
sages from it. Yet I have heard him say that 
(i there could not be a better exercise for a school- 
boy than to turn a page of it into English" 

When the Letters to Travis first appeared, Ren- 
nell said to me, " It is just such a book as the devil 
would write, if he could hold a pen." 

As soon as Gibbon's Autobiography and Miscel- 
laneous Works came out, they were eagerly devoured 
both by Porson and myself. Neither of us could 
afford to purchase the quarto edition ; so we bought 
the Dublin reprint in octavo. 

There was no cordiality between Porson and 
Jacob Bryant, for they thought very differently not 
only on the subject of Troy, but on most other sub- 
jects. Bryant used to abuse Porson behind his 
back ; and one day^ when he was violently attacking 
his character, the Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Douglas, 
said to him, " Mr. Bryant, you are speaking of a 
great man ; and you should remember, sir, that 
even the greatest men are not without their fail- 
ings." Cleaver Banks, who was present on that 
occasion, remarked to me, " I shall always think 



304 POBSONIANA, 

well of the Bishop for his generous defence of our 
friend." 

Porson was sometimes very rude in society. My 
relation, Dr 4 Maltby (Bishop of Durham), once invited 
him to meet Paley at dinner. Paley arrived first* 
When Porson (who had never before seen him) came 
into the room, he seated himself in an arm-chair, and 
looking very hard at Paley, said, (f Iam entitled to 
this chair, being president of a society for the disco- 
very of truth, of which I happen at present to be the 
only member." These words were levelled at certain 
political opinions broached in Paley's works. 

I have often wondered that Porson did not get 
into scrapes in those days, when it was so dangerous 
to express violent political feelings : he would think 
nothing of toasting a Jack Cade" at a tavern, when 
he was half-seas-over. 

One day after dinner, at Clayton Jennings's 
house, Captain Ash, who was always ready to warble, 
burst out, as usual, with a song. Now, Porson hated 
singing after dinner ; and, while Ash was in the 
middle of his song, an ass happening to bray in the 
street, Porson interrupted the Captain with " Sir, 
you have a rival," 



POESONIANA. 305 

He used frequently to regret that he had not 
gone to America in his youth and settled there. I 
said, " What would you have done without books ?" 
He answered, " I should have done without them. 55 

At one time he had some thoughts of taking 
orders, and studied divinity for a year or two. " But/ 5 
said he, "X found that I should require about fifty 
years 9 reading to make myself thoroughly acquainted 
with it, — to satisfy my mind on all points ; and there- 
fore I gave it up. There are fellows who go into a 
pulpit, assuming every thing, and knowing nothing : 
but J would not do so. 5 ' 

He said that every man ought to marry once. I 
observed that every man could not afford to maintain 
a family. " Oh," replied he, "pap is cheap." 

He insisted that all men are born with abilities 
nearly equal. "Any one, 55 he would say, "might 
become quite as good a critic as I am, if he would 
only take the trouble to make himself so. I have 
made myself what I am by intense labour : some- 
times, in order to impress a thing upon my memory, 
I have read it a dozen times, and transcribed it 
six."* 

* But he was certainly gifted by nature with most extraordinary 

X 



306 PORSONIANA. 

He once had occasion to travel to Norwich. 
When the coach arrived there, he was beset by se- 
veral porters, one offering to carry his portmanteau 
to his lodging for eighteen-pence, another for a 
shilling, another for ninepence : upon which, Porson 
shouldered the portmanteau, and marching off with 
it, said very gravely to the porters, " Gentlemen, I 
leave you to settle this dispute among yourselves. " — 
When, however, he went to stay with a friend for 
only a couple of days or so, he did not encumber 
himself with a portmanteau : he would merely take 
a shirt in his pocket, saying, " Omnia mea mecum 
porto" 

The time he wasted in writing notes on the mar- 
gins of books, — -I mean, in writing them with such 
beauty of penmanship that they rivalled print, — was 
truly lamentable.* And yet he used those very 



powers of memory. Dr. Downie, of Aberdeen, told me that, during 
a visit to London, he heard Porson declare that he could repeat 
Smollett's Roderick Random from beginning to end: — and Mr. Rich- 
ard Heber assured me that soon after the appearance of the Essay 
on Irish Bulls (the joint production of Edgeworth and his daughter), 
Porson used, when somewhat tipsy, to recite whole pages of it ver- 
batim with great delight. — Ed. 

* Such was his rage for calligraphy, that he once offered to letter 
the backs of some of Mr. Richard Heber's vellum-bound classics. 



POKSONIANA. 307 

books most cruelly, whether they were his own, or 
belonging to others : he would let them lie about 
his room, covered with dust and all sorts of dirt. — 
He said that "he possessed more bad copies of good 
books than any private gentleman in England." 

When he lived in Essex Court, Temple, he would 
shut himself up for three or four days together, ad- 
mitting no visitors to his chambers. One morning 
I went to call upon him there ; and having inquired 
at his barber's close by " if Mr. Porson was at 
home," was answered " Yes, but he has seen no one 
for two days." I, however, proceeded to his cham- 
bers, and knocked at the door more than once. He 
would not open it, and I came down stairs. As I 
was re-crossing the court, Porson, who had perceived 
that /was the visitor, opened the window, and stopped 
me. He was then busy about the Ghrenville Homer, 
for which he collated the Harleian Ms. of the Odys- 
sey. His labours on that work were rewarded with 

" No," said Heber, " I won't let you do that : but I shall be most 
thankful if you will write into an Athenaeus some of those excellent 
emendations which I have heard from you in conversation." Heber 
accordingly sent to him Brunck's interleaved copy of that author 
(Casaubon's edition) ; which Porson enriched with many notes. 
These notes were afterwards published in his Adversaria, The 
Athenaeus is now in my possession. — Ed. 



308 POKSONIANA. 

50/. and a large-paper copy. I thought the payment 
too small, but Burney considered it as sufficient. 

I told him one day that the examiners for the 
Cambridge University scholarship had just been 
greatly puzzled to find out which of the candidates 
was the best scholar. "Indeed!" said Porson : "I 
wish I had been there ; I would have put a ques- 
tion or two which would have quickly settled the 
point." 

Postlethwaite* having come to London to attend 
the Westminster Examination, Porson called upon 
him, when the following dialogue (which I wrote 
down from Porson's dictation) took place between 
them. — Porson. " I am come, sir, to inform you that 
my fellowship will become vacant in a few w T eeks, in 
order that you may appoint my successor." Postle. 
" But, Mr. Porson, you do not mean to leave us ?" — 
Porson. " It is not I who leave you, but you who 
dismiss me. You have done me every injury in your 
power. But I am not come to complain or expos- 
tulate." Postle. " I did not know, Mr. Porson, you 
were so resolved." — Porson. "You could not con- 
ceive, sir, that I should have applied for a lay-fellow- 

* Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. — Ed. 



PORSONIAXA. 

ship to the detriment of some more scrupulous man. 
if it had been my intention to take orders." 

In 1792. Postlethwaite wrote a letter to Poison 
informing him that the Greek Professorship at Cam- 
bridge had fallen vacant. Here is an exact copy of 
Poison's answer:* 

" Sir. — When I first received the favour of your 
letter j I must own that I felt rather vexation and 
chagrin than hope and satisfaction. I had looked 
upon myself so completely in the light of an outcast 
from Alma Mater, that I had made up my mind to 
have no farther connexion with the place. The 
prospect you held out to me gave me more uneasi- 
ness than pleasure. When I was younger than I now 
am, and my disposition more sanguine than it is at 
present, I was in daily expectation of Mr. Cooke's 
resignation, and I flattered myself with the hope of 
succeeding to the honour he was going to quit. As 
hope and ambition are great castle-builders, I had 
laid a scheme, partly, as I was willing to think, for 
the joint credit, partly for the mutual advantage, of 

* This letter lias been already printed ; but in publications that 
are verv little known. — Ed. 



310 PORSONIANA. 

myself and the University. I had projected a plan 
of reading lectures, and I persuaded myself that I 
should easily obtain a grace permitting me to exact 
a certain sum from every person who attended. But 
seven years' waiting will tire out the most patient 
temper ; and all my ambition of this sort was long 
ago laid asleep. The sudden news of the vacant 
professorship put me in mind of poor Jacob, who, 
having served seven years in hopes of being rewarded 
with Rachel, awoke, and behold it was Leah ! 

" Such, sir, I confess, were the first ideas that 
took possession of my mind. But after a little re- 
flection, I resolved to refer a matter of this import- 
ance to my friends. This circumstance has caused 
the delay, for which I ought before now to have 
apologised. My friends unanimously exhorted me to 
embrace the good fortune which they conceived to be 
within my grasp. Their advice, therefore, joined to 
the expectation I had entertained of doing some small 
good by my exertions in the employment, together 
with the pardonable vanity which the honour an- 
nexed to the office inspired, determined me : and I 
was on the point of troubling you, sir, and the other 
electors with notice of my intentions to profess my- 



PORSONIANA. 311 

self a candidate, when an objection, which had 
escaped me in the hurry of my thoughts, now oc- 
curred to my recollection. 

" The same reason w T hich hindered me from keep- 
ing my fellowship by the method you obligingly 
pointed out to me, would, I am greatly afraid, pre- 
vent me from being Greek Professor. Whatever con- 
cern this may give me for myself, it gives me none 
for the public. I trust there are at least twenty 
or thirty in the University equally able and willing 
to undertake the office ; possessed, many, of talents 
superior to mine, and all of a more complying con- 
science. This I speak upon the supposition that the 
next Greek Professor will be compelled to read lec- 
tures : but if the place remains a sinecure, the num- 
ber of qualified persons will be greatly increased. 
And though it were even granted, that my industry 
and attention might possibly produce some benefit to 
the interests of learning and the credit of the Uni- 
versity, that trifling gain would be as much ex- 
ceeded by keeping the Professorship a sinecure, and 
bestowing it on a sound believer, as temporal con- 
siderations are outweighed by spiritual. Having 
only a strong persuasion, not an absolute certainty, 



312 POKSONIANA. 

that such a subscription is required of the Professor 
elect, — if I am mistaken, I hereby offer myself as a 
candidate ; but if I am right in my opinion, I shall 
beg of you to order my name to be erased from the 
boards, and I shall esteem it a favour conferred on, 
sir, 

" Your obliged humble servant, 

" R. PORSON. 

"Essex Court, Temple, 6th October 1792." 

When he was first elected Greek Professor,* he 
assured me that he intended to give public lectures 
in that capacity. I afterwards asked him why he 
had not given them. He replied, " Because I have 
thought better on it : whatever originality my lec- 
tures might have had, people would have cried out, 
We knew all this before." 

I was with him one day when he bought Dra- 
kenborch's Livy; and I said, "Do you mean to 
read through all the notes in these seven quarto 
volumes?" "I buy it at least," he answered, "in 



* In 1793, by an unanimous vote of the seven electors. — Ac- 
cording to the printed accounts of Porson, he was prevented from 
giving lectures by the want of rooms for that purpose. — Ed. 



POBSONIANA. 313 

the hope of doing so some time or other : there is no 
doubt a deal of valuable information to be found in 
the notes : and I shall endeavour to collect that in- 
formation. Indeed. I should like to publish a volume 
of the curious things which I have gathered in the 
course of my studies ; but people would only say of 
it, We knew all this before" 

Porson had no very high opinion of Parr, and 
could not endure his metaphysics. One evening, 
Parr was beginning a regular harangue on the ori- 
gin of evil, when Porson stopped him short by ask- 
ing "what was the use of it ?" — Porson, who shrunk 
on all occasions from praise of himself, was only 
annoyed by the eulogies which Parr lavished upon 
him in print. When Parr published the Remarks 
on Combe s Statement, in which Porson is termed 
"a giant in literature,''* &c, Porson said, {; How 
should Dr. Parr be able to take the measure of a 
giant ?" 

* u But Mr. Porson, the re-publisher of Heyne's Virgil, is a 

giant in literature, a prodigy in intellect, a critic, whose mighty 
achievements leave imitation panting at a distance behind them, 
and whose stupendous powers strike down all the restless and 
aspiring suggestions of rivalry into silent admiration and passive 

awe.' : p. 13. This tract is not reprinted entire in the ed. of Parr's 
Works. — Ed. 



314 POESONIANA. 

Parr was evidently afraid of Porson, — of his 
intellectual powers. I might say too that Home 
Tooke had a dread of Porson ; but it was only the 
dread of being insulted by some rude speech from 
Porson in his drunkenness. Porson thought highly 
both of Tooke's natural endowments and of his ac- 
quirements. " I have learned many valuable things 
from Tooke/' was what he frequently said ; " yet I 
don't always believe Tooke's assertions," was some- 
times his remark. — (I knew Parr intimately. I once 
dined at Dilly's with Parr, Priestley, Cumberland, 
and some other distinguished people. Cumberland, 
who belonged to the family of the Blandishes, be- 
praised Priestley to his face, and after he had left 
the party, spoke of him very disparagingly. This 
excited Parr's extremest wrath. When I met him 
a few days after, he said, " Only think of Mr. Cum- 
berland ! that he should have presumed to talk be- 
fore me, — before me, sir, — in such terms of my friend 
Dr. Priestley ! Pray, sir, let Mr. Dilly know my 
opinion of Mr. Cumberland, — that his ignorance is 
equalled only by his impertinence, and that both 
are exceeded by his malice." — Parr hated Dr. Hors- 
ley to such a degree that he never mentioned him 



POESONIANA. 315 

by any other name than the fiend. — Parr once said 
to Barker, " You have read a great deal, you have 
thought very little, and you know nothing.") 

One day Porson went down to Greenwich to bor- 
row a book from Burney ; and finding that Burney 
was out, he stepped into his library, pocketed the 
volume, and set off again for London. Soon after, 
Burney came home ; and, offended at the liberty 
Porson had taken, pursued him in a chaise, and re- 
covered the book. Porson talked to me of this af- 
fair with some bitterness : " Did Burney suppose," 
he said, " that I meant to play his old tricks?" (al- 
luding to a well-known circumstance in the earlier 
part of Burney's history). 

I believe, with you, that Burney was indebted 
to Porson for many of those remarks on various 
niceties of Greek which he has given as his own in 
different publications. Porson once said to me, " A 
certain gentleman" (evidently meaning Burney) "has 
just been with me ; and he brought me a long string 
of questions, every one of which I answered off- 
hand, Really, before people become schoolmasters, 
they ought to get up their Greek thoroughly, for 
they never learn any thing more of it afterwards." — 



316 POESONIANA. 

I one day asked Burney for his opinion of Porson 
as a scholar. Burney replied, u I think my friend 
Dick's acquaintance with the Greek dramatists quite 
marvellous ; but he was just as well acquainted with 
them at the age of thirty as he is now : he has not im- 
proved in Greek since he added brandy-and-water to 
his potations, and took to novel-reading. " Porson 
would sometimes read nothing but novels for a fort- 
night together. 

Porson felt much respect for Gilbert Wakefield's 
integrity, but very little for his learning. When 
Wakefield put forth the Diatribe Extemporalis* on 
Porson's edition of the Hecuba, Porson said, " If 
Wakefield goes on at this rate, he will tempt me to 
examine his Silva Critica. I hope that we shall not 
meet ; for a violent quarrel would be the conse- 
quence." — (Wakefield was a very agreeable and en- 
tertaining companion. " My Lucretius ," he once 

* On the publication of Porson's Hecuba, Wakefield, in great 
agitation, asked Mr. Evans (the now retired bookseller) who was 
its editor ? " Can you have any doubts ?" replied Evans ; " Mr. 
Porson, of course." — "But," said Wakefield, "I want proof, — 
positive proof." " Well, then," replied Evans, " I saw Mr. Porson 
present a large-paper copy to Mr. Cracherode, and heard him ac- 
knowledge himself the editor." Wakefield immediately went home, 
and composed the Diatribe. — Ed. 



PORSONIANA, 317 

said to rue, "is my most perfect publication.— it 

is, in fact, Lucretius Restitutus."' * He was a great 

walker ; he has walked as much as forty miles in 

one clay ; and I believe that his death was partly 

brought on by excessive walking, after his long 

confinement in Dorchester gaol. What offended 

Wakefield at Porson was, that Porson had made no 

mention of him in his notes. Xow, Porson told 

Burney expressly, that out of pure kindness he 

had forborne to mention Wakefield ; for he could 

not have cited anv of his emendations without the 
*/ 

severest censure.) 

Dr. E.aine, Dr. Davy, Cleaver Banks, and per- 
haps I may add myself, were the persons with whom 
Porson maintained the greatest intimacy. 

Banks once invited Porson {about a year before 
his death] to dine with him at an hotel at the west 
end of London : but the dinner passed away with- 
out the expected guest having made his appearance. 
Afterwards, on Banks's asking him why he had not 
kept his engagement, Porson replied ^without enter- 
ing into further particulars; that ;; he had come:" 

* He sadly deceived himself: see the judgment passed on it by 
Lachmann in his recent admirable edition of Lucretius.— Ed. 



318 PORSONIANA. 

and Banks could only conjecture, that the waiters, 
seeing Porson's shabby dress, and not knowing who 
he was, had offered him some insult, which had made 
him indignantly return home. 

" I hear," said I to Porson, " that you are to dine 
to-day at Holland House." " Who told you so ?" 
askedhe.— Ireplied, " Mackintosh." "But I certainly 
shall not go," continued Porson : " they invite me 
merely out of curiosity ; and, after they have satisfied 
it, they would like to kick me down stairs," I then 
informed him that Fox was coming from St. Anne's 
Hill to Holland House for the express purpose of 
being introduced to him: but he persisted in his 
resolution ; and dined quietly with Rogers and myself 
at Rogers's chambers in the Temple. Many years 
afterwards, Lord Holland mentioned to Rogers that 
his uncle (Fox) had been greatly disappointed at not 
meeting Porson on that occasion, 

Porson disliked Mackintosh: they differed in 
politics, and their reading had little in common. 

One day Porson took up in my room a nicely 
bound copy of the Polycraticon (by John of Salis- 
bury), and having dipped into it, said, '' I must read 
this through ;" so he carried it off. About a month 



PORSONIANA. 319 

had elapsed, when calling at his chambers, I hap- 
pened to see my beautiful book lying on the floor 
and covered with dust. This vexed me ; and I men- 
tioned the circumstance to Mr. Maltby (an elder 
brother of the Bishop of Durham), who repeated to 
Porson what I had said. A day or two after, I dined 
with Porson at Rogers's : he swallowed a good deal 
of wine ; and then began in a loud voice an indirect 
attack on me,—" There are certain people who com- 
plain that I use their books roughly," &c. &c. I was 
quite silent; and when he found that I would not 
take any notice of his tirade, he dropped the subject. 

When Porson was told that Pretyman* had been 
left a large estate by a person who had seen him 
only once, he said, " It would not have happened, 
if the person had seen him twice." 

Meeting me one day at a booksale, Porson said, 
" That * * * the Bishop of Lincoln (Tomline) 
has just passed me in the street, and he shrunk from 
my eye like a wild animal. What do you think he 
has had the impudence to assert ? Not long ago, he 

* Then Bishop of Lincoln. A valuable estate was bequeathed 
to him by Marmaduke Tomline (a gentleman with whom he had no 
relationship or connection), on condition of his taking the name of 
Tomline. — Ed. 



320 POKSONTANA. 

came to me, and, after informing me that Lord Elgin 
was appointed ambassador to the Porte, he asked me 
if I knew any one who was competent to examine 
the Greek manuscripts at Constantinople : I replied, 
that I did not : and he now tells every body that I 
refused the proposal of government that I should go 
there to examine those manuscripts /"— I do not be- 
lieve that Porson would have gone to Constantinople, 
if he had had the offer. He hated moving ; and 
would not even accompany me to Paris. When I 
was going thither, he charged me with a message to 
Villoison. 

When Porson first met Perry after the fire in the 
house of the latter at Merton, he immediately in- 
quired " if any lives had been lost ?"■ Perry replied 
"No." "Well," said Porson, "then I shall not 
complain, though I have lost the labours of my life." 
His transcript* of the Cambridge Photius, which was 
burnt in that fire, he afterwards replaced by pati- 
ently making a second transcript ; but his numerous 
notes on Aristophanes, which had also been con- 
sumed, were irrecoverably gone. 

* Two beautifully written fragments of it (scorched to a deep 
brown) are in my possession. — Ed. 



POBSONIANA. 321 

He used to call Bishop Porteus " Bishop Pro- 
teus" (as one who had changed his opinions from 
liberal to illiberal). 

For the scholarship of that amiable man Bishop 
Burgess he felt a contempt which he w T as unable to 
conceal. He was once on a visit at Oxford, in com- 
pany with Cleaver Banks, where, during a supper- 
party, he gave great offence by talking of Burgess 
with any thing but respect. At the same supper- 
party, too, he offended Professor Holmes :* taking up 
an oyster which happened to be gaping, he exclaimed, 
Quid dig num tanto feret hie professor hiatu?\ (sub- 
stituting " professor" for " promissor"). 

Porson, having good reason to believe that Mat- 
thias was the author of the Pursuits of Literature, 
used always to call him "the Pursuer of Literature." 

It was amusing to see Kidd in Porson's company : 
he bowed down before Porson with the veneration 
due to some being of a superior nature, and seemed 
absolutely to swallow every word that dropped from 
his mouth. Porson acknowledged (and he was slow 
to praise) that " Kidd was a very pretty scholar." 

* The then Professor of Poetry. — Ed. 
f Horace, Ars Poet 138.— Ed. 



322 POKSONIANA. 

Out of respect to the memory of Markland, Por- 
son went to see the house near Dorking where he 
had spent his later years and where he died. 

I need hardly say that he thought Tyrwhitt an 
admirable critic. 

A gentleman who had heard that Bentley was 
born in the north, said to Porson, " Wasn't he a 
Scotchman?" — " No, sir/' replied Porson; " Bentley 
was a great Greek scholar." 

He said, " Pearson would have been a first-rate 
critic in Greek, if he had not muddled his brains 
with divinity." 

He had a high opinion of Coray as a scholar, and 
advised me by all means to purchase his Hippocrates.* 

He liked Larcher's translation of Herodotus, and, 
indeed, all Larcher's pieces. At his recommenda- 
tion I bought Larcher's Memoire sur Venus. — He 
was a great reader of translations, and never wrote 
a note on any passage of an ancient author without 
first carefully looking how it had been rendered by 
the different translators. 

Porson, of course, did not value the Latin writers 

* i. e. The Treatise of Hippocrates on Airs, Waters, and Places 
(in Greek and French), 2 vols. — Ed. 



PORSONIANA. 323 

so much as the Greek; but still he used to read many 
of the former with great care, particularly Cicero, of 
whose Tusculan Disputations he was very fond. 

For all modern Greek and Latin poetry he had 
the profoundest contempt. When Herbert pub- 
lished the Musce Etonenses, Porson said, after look- 
ing over one of the volumes, " Here is trash, fit 
only to be put behind the fire." 

His favourite authors in Greek (as, I believe, 
every body knows) were the tragedians and Aristo- 
phanes ; he had them almost by heart. 

He confessed to me and the present Bishop of 
Durham (Maltby), that he knew comparatively little 
of Thucydides, — that, when he read him, he was 
obliged to mark with a pencil, in almost every page, 
passages which he did not understand. 

He dabbled a good deal in Galen. 

He cared less about Lucian than, considering 
the subjects of that writer, you might suppose; the 
fact was, he did not relish such late Greek. 

He sent Thomas Taylor* several emendations of 

* With that remarkable person, Thomas Taylor, I was well 
acquainted. In Greek verbal scholarship he was no doubt very 
deficient (he was entirely self-taught) ; but in a knowledge of the 
matter of Plato, of Aristotle, of the commentators on Aristotle (them- 



324 PORSONIANA. 

Plato's text for his translation of that philosopher ; 
but Taylor, from his ignorance of the Greek lan- 
guage, was unable to use them. 

selves a library), of Proclus, of Plotinus, &c., he has never, I pre- 
sume, been equalled by any Englishman. That he endeavoured to 
carry into practice the precepts of the ancient philosophers is suffi- 
ciently notorious : that he did so to the last hour of his existence I 
myself had a proof : the day before he died, I went to see him ; and 
to my inquiry "how he was?" he answered, "I have passed a 
dreadful night of pain, — but you remember what Posidonius said to 
Pompey" (about pain being no evil). 

Chalmers, in his Biog. Diet, expresses his regret that he can tell 
so little about Ployer Sydenham, the excellent translator of Plato, 
and remarks that he " deserves a fuller account." I give the fol- 
lowing particulars concerning him on the authority of Taylor, who 
when a young man was intimate with Sydenham, and who, let me 
add, had a scrupulous regard to truth in whatever he stated. — 
Sydenham was originally a clergyman with a living of about 800Z. 
per annum ; but, having fallen in love with a young lady whose 
father objected to his addresses because he was in the church, he 
threw up his living, and had recourse to the law as a profession. 
After all, it appears, he did not marry the fair one for whose sake 
he had sacrificed so much. Having made no progress at the bar, he 
entered the naval service, went abroad, endured many hardships, 
and finally worked his way back to England as a common sailor. He 
was far from young when he first applied himself to the study of 
Plato. During his later years Taylor became acquainted with him. 
On their first meeting, Sydenham shook Taylor cordially by the 
hand, and said he reckoned himself truly fortunate in having at last 
met with a real Platonist, — deeply regretting his own want of fami- 
liarity with Proclus and Plotinus. He at that time lodged at the 
house of a statuary in the Strand. He was in very distressed cir- 
cumstances ; and regularly received two guineas a month from 
Harris (the author of Hermes). He used to dine at a neighbouring 



POESONIANA. 325 

A gentleman who, at the age of forty, wished to 
commence the study of Greek, asked Porson with 
what books he ought to begin ? Porson answered, 
" With one only, — Scapula's Lexicon ; read it 
through from the first page to the last." — Of the 
editions of that work Porson most valued the Ge- 
neva one ; he said that he had found in it several 
things which were not in the other editions. 

He recommended Gesner's Thesaurus in prefer- 
ence to all Latin dictionaries. 

He read a vast number of French works, and 
used to say, ^ If I had a son, I should endeavour 
to make him familiar with French and English au- 
thors, rather than with the classics. Greek and 
Latin are only luxuries." 

Of Italian, I apprehend, he knew little or no- 
thing. 



eating-house, where he had run up a bill of 40Z. This debt, as 
well as several other debts, he was unable to pay ; and his acquaint- 
ances refused to discharge his bills, though they consented to main- 
tain him during his abode in the Fleet-prison, where he was about 
to be confined. The night preceding the day on which he was to 
be carried to gaol he was found dead, — having undoubtedly (as 
Taylor asserted) put an end to his existence. For some time before 
his death he had been partially insane : as he went up and down 
stairs, he fancied turkeys were gobbling at him, &c. — Ed. 



326 PORSONIANA. 

He delighted in Milton. " If I live," he ex- 
claimed, " I will write an essay to show the world 
how unjustly Milton has been treated by Johnson." 
— (George Steevens told me that Johnson said to 
him, " In my Life of Milton I have spoken of the 
Paradise Lost, not so much from my own convic- 
tion of its merit, as in compliance with the taste of 
the multitude." — A very old gentleman, who had 
known Johnson intimately, assured me that the bent 
of his mind was decidedly towards scepticism ; that 
he was literally afraid to examine his own thoughts 
on religious matters; and that hence partly arose 
his hatred of Hume and other such writers. — 
Dr. Gosset (as he himself told me) once dined with 
Johnson and a few others at Dr. Musgrave's (the 
editor of Euripides). During dinner, while Mus- 
grave was holding forth very agreeably on some sub- 
ject, Johnson suddenly interrupted him with, " Sir, 
you talk like a fool." A dead silence ensued; and 
Johnson, perceiving that his rude speech had occa- 
sioned it, turned to Musgrave, and said, " Sir, I fear 
I have hurt your feelings." " Dr. Johnson," replied 
Musgrave, "I feel only for you." — I have often heard 
Mrs. Carter say, that, rude as Johnson might occa- 



PORSONIANA. 327 

sionally be to others, both male and female, he had 
invariably treated her with gentleness and kindness. 
She perfectly adored his memory ; and she used to 
read his Tour to the Hebrides once every year, think- 
ing it, as I do, one of his best works.) 

Porson was passionately fond of Swift's Tale of 
a Tub, and whenever he saw a copy of it on a stall, 
he would purchase it. He could repeat by heart a 
quantity of Swift's verses. 

His admiration of Pope was extreme. I have 
seen the tears roll down his cheeks while he was 
repeating Pope's lines To the Earl of Oxford, pre- 
fixed to ParnelVs Poems (and, indeed, I have seen 
him weep, while repeating other favourite passages, 
— the chorus in the Hercules Furens of Euripides, 
C A veoras jjloi <j>l\ov a^das, &c). He thought Pope's 
Homer, in the finest passages of the poem, superior 
to Cowper's. One forenoon, while he was going over 
Pope's villa at Twickenham, in company with Rogers 
and myself, he said, " Oh, how I should like to pass 
the remainder of my days in a house which was the 
abode of a man so deservedly celebrated !" 

He was fond of Foote's plays, and would often 
recite scenes from them. 



328 POESONIANA. 

Junius was one of his favourite authors ; he had 
many passages of him by heart. 

He greatly admired and used often to repeat the 
following passage from the Preface to Middleton's 
Free Inquiry : 

i( I persuade myself that the life and faculties of 
man, at the best but short and limited, cannot be 
employed more rationally or laudably than in the 
search of knowledge ; and especially of that sort 
which relates to our duty and conduces to our hap- 
piness. In these inquiries, therefore, wherever I 
perceive any glimmering of truth before me, I 
readily pursue and endeavour to trace it to its 
source, without any reserve or caution of pushing 
the discovery too far, or opening too great a glare of 
it to the public. I look upon the discovery of any 
thing which is true as a valuable acquisition to so- 
ciety ; which cannot possibly hurt or obstruct the 
good effect of any other truth whatsoever ; for they all 
partake of one common essence, and necessarily coin- 
cide with each other ; and like the drops of rain, which 
fall separately into the river, mix themselves at once 
w T ith the stream, and strengthen the general current." 

He liked Moore's Fables for the Female Sex, and 



PORSONIANA. 329 

I have heard him repeat the one which is entitled 
" The Female Seducers."* 

At a booksale, the auctioneer having put up 
Wilkes's edition of Theophrastus, and praised it high- 
ly, Porson exclaimed, " Pooh, pooh, it is like its 
editor, — of no character." — (I was very intimate 
with Wilkes. He felt excessively angry at the ac- 
count given of him in Gibbon's " Journal" — in the 
quarto edition of his MiscelL Works, i. 100, — and 
said to me that " Gibbon must have been drunk 
when he wrote that passage." The fact is, Lord 
Sheffield printed in the quarto edition only part of 
what Gibbon had written about Wilkes : if the whole 
of it had appeared there, as it afterwards did in the 
octavo edition, I have no doubt that Wilkes would 
have called out Lord Sheffield.) 

Porson would often carry in his pocket a volume 
of A Cordial for Low Spirits .-j- 

* This now-forgotten poem was once very popular. Speaking 
of Dr. Mudge, " I remember," said Northcote, " his once reading 
Moore's fable of The Female Seducers with such feeling and sweet- 
ness that every one was delighted, and Dr. Mudge himself was so 
much affected that he burst into tears in the middle of it." Hazlitt's 
Conversations of JYorthcote, p. 89. At present Moore iS only recol- 
lected as the author of The Gamester. — Ed. 

f As the Cordial for Low Spirits, in three volumes, is now little 
read, I may mention that it is a very curious collection of contro- 



330 POESONIANA. 

On returning from a visit to the Lakes, I told 
Porson that Southey had said to me, " My Madoc 
has brought me in a mere trifle ; but that poem will 
be a valuable possession to my family.' , Porson ans- 
wered, "Madoc will be read, — -when Homer and 
Virgil are forgotten" (a bon-mot which reached Lord 
Byron, and which his lordship spoilt*). 

He disliked reading folios, " because," said he, 
"we meet with so few mile-stones" (i.e. we have 
such long intervals between the turning over of the 
leaves). 

The last book he ever purchased was Watson's 
Horace ; the last author he ever read was Pausa- 
nias. 

"When asked why he had written so little, Porson 
replied, " I doubt if I could produce any original 
work which would command the attention of poste- 
rity. I can be known only by my notes : and I am 
quite satisfied if, three hundred years hence, it shall 

versial pieces, &c, some of which were written by Thomas Gordon 
(author of The Independent Whig), who edited the work. Its hete- 
rodoxy did not render it the less acceptable to Porson. — Ed. 

* " Joan of Arc was marvellous enough; but Thalaba was one 
of those poems ' which,' in the words of Porson, ' will be read when 
Homer and Virgil are forgotten, — but — not till then?" Note on 
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, — Ed. 



POKSONIANA. 331 

be said that ' one Porson lived towards the close of 
the eighteenth century, who did a good deal for the 
text of Euripides.' " 

The Letters on the Orgies of Bacchus, signed 
" Mythologus," are undoubtedly by Porson. Kidd 
says that " his mind must have been overclouded"* 
at the time he wrote those Letters: which is not 
true ; his mind was then in its soundest and most 
vigorous state. They show plainly enough what his 
opinions were. — When any one said to him, " Why 
don't you speak out more plainly on matters of re- 
ligion?" he would answer, "No, no; I shall take 
care not to give my enemies a hold upon me." 
- — The New Catechism for the use of the Swinish 
Multitude (which Carlisle of Fleet Street reprinted) 
was also certainly by Porson. I transcribed it from 
a copy in his own handwriting.f 

It is not known who wrote Six more Letters to 

* Por son's Tracts, p. xxxiii. note. — The object of these Letters 
(originally printed in The Morning Chronicle, and reprinted in The 
Spirit of the Public Journals for 1797) is to point out, or rather to 
insinuate, the resemblance between the history of Bacchus and that 
of our Saviour. However they may shock the reader, at least they 
can do him no harm; the whole being quite as absurd as it is pro- 
fane. — Ed. 

f A gentleman informed me, that Porson presented to him a 
copy of the Catechism, — a printed copy. — Ed. 



332 PORSOXIANA. 

Granville Sharp, which, according to the title-page, 
are by Gregory Blunt. They were" very generally 
attributed to Porson ; and I have been in a book- 
seller's shop with him, when a person has come in, 
and asked for "Mr. Porson's remarks on Sharp." 
I do not believe that he was the author of them ; 
but I have little doubt that he gave some assistance 
to the author, particularly in the notes. He always 
praised the work, and recommended it to his 
friends.* 

I have often heard him repeat the following lines, 
which, I presume, were his own composition :f 

" Poetis nos hetamur trihus, 
Pye. Pet ro Pindar, parvo Pybus : 
Si ulterius ire pergis, 
Adcle his Sir James Bland Burges/' 

Porson thought meanly of the medical science, 
and hated consulting physicians. He once said to 

* These Six more Letters form a sort of supplement to a publi- 
cation by the late Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, entitled Six Letters 
to Granville Sharp. Esq.. respecting his Remarks on the Uses of the 
Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the yew Testament, 1802. 
In the - Advertisement to Who wrote EIKHN BA2IAIKH, &c, 
1824, Dr. Wordsworth states that Porson " assured him privately" 
that the Six more Letters were not from his pen. — Ed. 

f They are printed by Dubois, but very incorrectly, in his satire 
on Sir John Carr, My Pocket-Bock, Sec. p. 91. — Ed. 



PORSONIANA. 333 

me, " I have been staying with Dr. Davy at Cam- 
bridge : I was unwell, and he prevailed upon me to 
call in a physician, who took my money, and did 
me no good." 

During the earlier part of our acquaintance, I 
have heard him boast that he had not the slightest 
dread of death, — declaring that he despised fcibulcE 
aniles, and quoting Epicharmus (from Cicero*), &c. 
He was once holding forth in this strain, when Dr. 
Babington said to him, " Let me tell you, Porson, 
that I have known several persons who, though, 
when in perfect health, they talked as you do now, 
were yet dreadfully alarmed when death was really 
near them." 

A man of such habits as Porson was little fitted 
for the office of Librarian to the London Institu- 
tion. He was very irregular in his attendance there ; 
he never troubled himself about the purchase of 
books which ought to have been added to the li- 
brary ; and he would frequently come home dead- 
drunk long after midnight. I have good reason to 
believe that, had he lived, he would have been re- 
quested to give up the office,— in other words, he 

* Tw.sc. i. 8.— Ed. 



334 POKSONIANA. 

would have been dismissed. I once read a letter 
which he received from the Directors of the Institu- 
tion, and which contained, among other severe things, 
this cutting remark, — " We only know that you are 
our Librarian by seeing your name attached to the 
receipts for your salary." His intimate friend, Dr. 
Raine, was one of those who signed that letter ; and 
Raine, speaking of it to me, said, " Porson well de- 
served it." As Librarian to the Institution, he had 
200/. a-year, apartments rent-free, and the use of a 
servant. Yet he was eternally railing at the Direc- 
tors, calling them "mercantile and mean beyond 
merchandize and meanness. 5 ' 

During the two last years of his life I could 
perceive that he was not a little shaken ; and it is 
really wonderful, when we consider his drinking, 
and his total disregard of hours, that he lived so 
long as he did. He told me that he had had an 
affection of the lungs from his boyhood. 



ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA. 



P. 16. The full title of Mr. Rogers's earliest publi- 
cation is An Ode to Superstition, with some other Poems. 
The small pieces annexed to the Ode are, lines u To a 
Lady on the Death of her Lover/' " The Sailor/ 5 {: A Sketch 
of the Alps at Day-break/ 5 and " A Wish." The first of 
these Mr, Rogers thought unworthy of preservation ; but 
it may be subjoined here : — - 

" To a Lady on the Death of her Lover. 

u Hail, pensive, pleasing Melancholy, hail ! 
Descend, and woo, with me, the silent shade ; 
The curfew swings its sound along the gale, 
And the soft moonlight sleeps in every glade. 

She comes, she comes ! through **'s dusky grove, 
In mild Eliza's form, I see her come ! 

Mourning with all the widow's vows of love 
Her Henry's summons to his long, long home. 

But hark ! from yon bright cloud a voice she hears ! 
e No more, fond maid, from social pleasures fly : 
' I'm sent from heaven to smile away thy tears, 
' For Henry shares the triumphs of the sky. 

6 He's gone before but to prepare for thee ; 

c And when thy soul shall wing its willing flight, 

c His kindred soul, from all its fetters free, 

c Will spring to meet thee in the realms of light. 



336 ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA. 

1 Know, ye shall then, with mutual wonder, trace 
4 Each little twinkling star in yon blue sphere, 
6 Explore what modes of being people space, 
' And visit worlds whose laws he taught thee here. 

6 Go, act an angel's part, be misery's friend ; 
( Go, and an angel's feelings shalt thou gain. 
e Each grateful spirit o'er thy couch shall bend, 
6 And whisper peace, when flattery's voice is vain. 

c Wake from thy trance. Can virtue sink in sighs ? 
' When darkness frowns, she looks beyond the tomb. 
6 Memory and Hope, like evening stars, arise, 
6 And shed their mingled rays to gild the gloom. 

' Religion speaks. She bids thy sorrows cease : 
6 With gratitude enjoy what God has given. 
i Religion speaks. She points the path to peace : 
c Attend her call to happiness and heaven.' " 



P. 18, note. Dele the sentence — f 'One or two songs," 
&c. 

P. 175, 176. For (i Marley" read " Marlay."— He was 
successively Bishop of Clonfert and Bishop of Waterford. 



INDEX TO RECOLLECTIONS 



THE TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 



Adair, Sir Robert, 97. 

Adams, 106. 

Addington, 109. 

Addison, 49. 

Adventurer, The, 96. 

Africanus, Scipio, 174. 

Aikin, 81. 

Alexis, 290. 

Allen, 201. 

Alvanley, Lord, 163, 213, 214, 

Anspach, Margravine of, 127. 

Antonio, Marc, 154. 

Ariosto, 91, 255. 

Art Union, The, 156. 

Aston, 31, 32, 33, 

Auger, 172. 

Bacon, 156. 
Baillie, Joanna, 228. 
Baber, 283,284. 
Banks, 156. 
Bankes, 288. 



338 INDEX TO THE EECOLLECTIONS. 

Bannister, 8. 

Barbauld, Mrs., 81, 95, 179, 180, 241. 

Barre, 248. 

Barry, 88. 

Bath, Lord, 214. 

Bathurst, Lord, 25, 265, 266. 

Bathurst, Lady, 26. 

Beattie, 40, 44. 

Bean clerk, 40. 

Beaumont, Sir George, 8, 31, 32, 33, 188. 

Beccaria, 257. 

Beckforcl, 214, 215, 216, 217. 

Bedford, Francis Duke of, 83. 

Beechy, Sir William, 153. 

Beloe, 134, 111. 

Bentinck, Lord William, 100. 

Beranger, 253. 

Berry, the Misses, 258. 

Berthier, 269. 

Besborough, Lady, 70. 

Beshorough, Lord, 135. 

Betty (the Young Boscius), 87. 

Bishop, 115. 

Blair, 45. 

Bloomfleld, Sir Benjamin, 265, 266. 

Blount, Martha, 25. 

Boddington, 41, 42, 125. 

Bolingbroke, Lord, 25, 95. 

Bon-mots, 118. 

Borghese collection of pictures, 153. 

Bossuet, 49. 

Boswell, 10, 19. 

Bosville, 128. 

Bowles, 221, 258, 259. 

Bowles, Mrs., 259. 

Boyce, Miss, 230. 



INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 389 

Brome, Lord, 143. 
Brougham, Lord, 234. 
Buckingham, Duchess of, 266. 
Buffon, 49. 

Buonaparte, 86, 93, 288. (See Napoleon.) 
Buonaparte, Lucien, 269. 
Burdett, Sir Erancis, 128. 

Burke, 19, 20, 66, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 99, 173, 270, 271. 
Burnet, 88. 
Burns, 46. 
Butler, 112. 

Byron, Lord, 192, 209, 222, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 
236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 281. 

Cjesak, Julius, 93, 174, 269. 

Campbell, Lady Charlotte, 263. 

Campbell, Thomas, 28, 207, 228, 238, 250, 251, 252, 

Canning, 159, 160, 161. 

Canova, 156, 270. 

Canterbury, Lord, 286. 

Carlisle, Lord, 72, 177. 

Caroline, Queen, 263. (See Wales, Princess of.) 

Cary, 282, 283, 284. 

Castlereagh, Lord, 189, 256. 

Catherine, Empress, 103, 104. 

Chantrey, Sir Erancis, 156, 157, 158, 192. 

Charade, 255. 

Charlotte, Queen, 75, 261. 

Charlotte, Princess, 265, 266. 

Chatham, Lord, 100, 132. 

Chesterfield, Lord, 118. 

Churchill, 139. 

Clairvoyance, 290. 

Clarence, Duke of, 260. (See William the Fourth.) 

Claude, 155, 188. 

Cleopatra, 174. 



340 INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 

Cline, 96, 127, 129. 

Clive, Lord, 62. 

Cocked hats, 7. 

Coleridge, 150, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 282. 

Collins, 109, 202. 

Colman, 248. 

Coloseum in the Eegent's Park, 190. 

Combe, 112, 113, 114, 115, 187. 

Condorcet, 41. 

Congreve, 95. 

Cooke, 136. 

Cork, Lady, 105, 287. 

Corneille, 49. 

Cornwallis, Lord, 143. 

Courtenay, 36. 

Cowper, 28, 96, 134, 135, 136. 

Crabbe, 163, 245, 246, 247. 

Credi, 158. 

Crewe, Mr. and Mrs., afterwards Lord and Lady, 23, 63, 64, 80, 99, 

172, 218. 
Crowe, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227. 
Cumberland, Duke of, 102. 
Cumberland, Richard, 136, 137. 
Curran, 158, 159. 
Cuyp, 153. 

D'Alembekt, 123. 

Dance, 21. 

Dannecker, 157. 

Darwin, 180. 

D'Arblay, Madame, 179, 192. 

Dawson, Mrs., 248. 

Deaths of friends in newspapers, 199. 

Delille, 48. 

Derby, Lord, 198. 

Devonshire, Georgiana Duchess of, 1 90, 191, 250. 



INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 341 

Devonshire, William, fifth Duke of, 191. 

Dino, Duchess di, 253. 

DTsraeli, 29. 

Doria collection of pictures, 153. 

Douglas, 106. 

Drummond, Sir William, 261. 

Dryden, 29, 30, 31, 88, 89, 221. 

Dudley, Lord, 184, 262. (See Ward,) 

Duels, 212, 213, 214. 

Dundas, 110, 144. 

Dunmore, Lady, 177. 

Dunmore, Lord, 143. 

Dunning, 56. 

Durham, Lord, 254. 

Dyer, 271. 

Eldon, Lord, 126, 189. 

Elgin Marbles, 153. 

Ellenborough, Lord, 196, 197. 

Ellis, George, 159. 

Ellis, Welbore, 63. 

Englefield, Sir Henry, 152, 261. 

Erskine, Lord, 51, 52, 53, 54, 126, 127, 286. 

Essex, Lord, 267. 

Este, 58, 59, 142. 

Euripides, 92. 

Farnbokough, Lord, 21. 

Earren, Miss, 16. 

Fielding, 227. 

Eincastle, Lord, 277. 

Fitzpatrick, 10, 65, 73, 104, 105, 113, 191, 278, 

Flaxman, 156. 

Foote, 100, 101, 102. 

Fordyce, 23. 

Foscolo, 282. 



342 INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 

Fox, Charles James, 20, 36, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 
83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92,J3, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 
100, 104, 142, 248, 254. 

Fox, Mrs., 84, 85, 87, 88, 97, 97, 105. 

Fox, General, 84, 85. 

Fox, Joseph, 201. 

Francis, Sir Philip, 272, 273. 

Frere, 16, 159, 192, 203. 

Fuller, 192. 

Fuseli, 198. 

Gabrick, 7, 8, 9, 87, 88, 101, 106, 107, 136. 

Genlis, Madame de, 80, 81. 

George the Third, 90, 259, 260. 

George the Fourth, 266, 267, 268. (See Wales, Prince of.) 

Gerald, 49. 

Gibhon, 66, 77, 78, 115, 134, 174, 196. 

Gifford, 208, 209, 210, 211. 

Gilpin, 18, 256. 

Giorgione, 155. 

Glenbervie, Lady, 83. 

Gloucester, Duchess of, 163. 

Glynn, 13'4. 

Godwin, 248, 249. 

Goethe, 252. 

Goldsmith, 85. 

Gordon, Jane Duchess of, 143, 144. 

Gordon, Lord George, 182. 

Graham, Sir James, 289. 

Grattan, 172, 173, 174, 175. 

Gray, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 91, 160, 221. 

Grenville, Lord, 78, 109, 110, 111, 256. 

Grenville, Kt. Hon. Thomas, 8, 54, 63, 178, 198. 

Grey, Lord, 191. 

Guido, 154. 

Gulliver's Travels, 257. 



INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 343 

Guilford, Lady, 198. 
Guilford, Lord, 220, 221. 
Gurwood, 289, 290. 

Hadyn, 22. 

Halford, Sir Henry, 268. 

Halhed, 67. 

Hamilton, Alexander Duke of, 217. 

Hamilton, Archibald Duke of, 177. ' 

Hamilton, Duchess of, 214, 217. 

Hamilton, Lady, 141, 142. 

Hamilton, Sir William, 141. 

Hamilton, William Gerard, 173. 

Hampden, Lord, 141. 

Hampstead Assemblies, 102. 

Hannibal, 174. 

Hare, 104. 

Harington, Sir John, 255. 

Harris, 128. 

Hayley, 56, 57, 58. 

Head-dresses of the ladies, 22. 

Helens, Lord St., 103, 104. 

Henderson, 109, 136. 

Herschel, Sir John, 196. 

Highwaymen in former days, 198. 

Hippocrates, 94. 

Historians, the Greek and Latin, 93, 94. 

Hobhouse, 228, 237. 

Hogarth, 155. 

Holland, Henry Lord, 201. 

Holland, H. R. Vassall Lord, 1, 27, 57, 71, 82, 137, 202, 256, 274, 

275, 276. 
Holland, Lady, 96, 272, 273, 274, 275, 286. 
Homer, 60, 61, 62, 92. 
Hook, 285, 286. 
Hoole, 130. 



344 INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 

Hope, 264. 

Hoppner, 208, 211. 

Horner, 278. 

Horsley, 212. 

Howard, 151. 

Howarth, 213, 

Howley, Bishop, afterwards Archbishop, 71, 170, 283. 

Hume, 44, 105, 106, 123, 143. 

Hunt, 236. 

Hunter, John, 60. 

Hunter, Mrs., 46. 

Hurd, 101. 

Inchbau>, Mrs., 243, 244. 
Ireland, curses of, 199. 
Irishmen, Three, behaviour of, 189. 
Isabey, 269. 

Jackson, John, 157. 

Jackson, Dr. Cyril, 16L 

Jeffrey, Lord, 277, 278, 280. 

Jekyll, 105. 

Jersey, Lady, 193, 230, 264, 265. 

Johnson, 9, 10. 

Jordan, Mrs., 64. 

Jortin, 49. 

Josephine, Empress, 269. 

Junius's Letters, 173, 270, 271, 272. 

Kemble, 87, 151, 186, 187 y 188. 

Kenyon, Lord, 196. 

Kippis, 43, 133. 

Knight, 60, 202. 

Knighton, Sir William, 267, 

Knowles, 285. 

Kosciusko, 51. 



INDEX TO THE KECOLLECTIONS. 345 

Lafayette, 41. 

Lamartine, 253. 

Lamb, Lady Caroline, 231, 232. 

Lancaster, 200. 

Lane, 138. 

Lansdowne, Lord, 57, 58, 137. 

Laurence, Dr., 20, 78, 270. 

Laurence, Sir Thomas, 154, 155, 158, 183, 184, 185, 267. 

Lawless, 24. 

Legge, 159. 

Leopold, Prince, 266. 

Lewis, 163, 164. 

Lindsay, Lady Charlotte, 261. 

Lionardo, 154. 

Liston, 253. 

Living like brothers, 182. 

Lonsdale, Lord, 189, 206, 207. 

Loughborough, Lord, 107. 

Lucan, Lady, 10. 

Lunardi, 84. 

Luttrell, 30, 53, 233, 276. 

Lyttelton, George Lord, 95, 118. 

Lyttelton, Thomas Lord, 95, 118, 119. 

Mack, 268. 

Mackenzie, 44, 45, 46. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 48, 49, 85, 194, 195, 196, 204, 251, 271, 

276, 283. 
Macleane, 38. 
Macready, 285. 
Mall, The, 11. 
Malmesbury, Lord, 128. 
Malone, 79, 270. 
Maltby, 9, 17, 108, 
Malthus, 194. 
Mansel, 39. 



346 INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 

Manzoni, 257. 

Marivaux, 47, 48. 

Marlay, 175, 176. 

Marmontel, 81, 121. 

Martindale, 190. 

Mary, Queen, 26. 

Mason, 17, 35, 39. 

Massinger, 90. 

Matthias, 38, 133, 134, 135. 

Melbourne, Lord, 284. 

Melville, Lady, 220, 221. 

Melville, Lord, 220. 

Metastasio, 90. 

Mickle, 95. 

Middleton, 49, 172. 

Milton, 90, 128, 149, 150, 194, 221, 227. 

Mitford, 137. 

Moliere, 49. 

Monboddo, Lord, 50. 

Monsey, 211, 212. 

Montagu, Lady M. W., 39. 

Moore, Sir John Henry, 46, 47. 

Moore, Thomas, 68, 69, 158, 160, 221, 227, 228, 233, 276, 277, 278, 

279, 280, 281, 282. 
Morris, 250. 
Murat, 274. 
Murphy, 100, 101, 106, 107, 108. 

Naples, Queen of, 274. 

Napoleon, 268, 269, 270. (See Buonaparte.) 

Nash, 102. 

National Gallery, 153. 

Nelson, Lord, 141, 142. 

New publications, 199. 

North, Lord, 63, 78, 83, 248. 

Northcote, 21. 



INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 347 

O'Coigly, 48. 
Ogle, 69. 
Oglethorpe, 10. 
Orde, Mrs., 216. 
Ottley, 158. 

Painters, living, 155. 

Paley, 91, 117. 

Pamela (Lady Edward Eitzgerald), 67, 80. 

Pansh anger, pictures at, 153. 

Parr, 48, 49, 62, 63. 

Pascal, 49. 

Pearson, 129. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 247, 248, 284, 289. 

Pepys, Sir William "Weller, 7. 

Petrarch, 91. 

Piozzi, Mr. and Mrs., 16, 45. 

Pitt, George (Lord Rivers), 54, 55. 

Pitt, William, 78, 79, 82, 109, 110, 111, 112, 143, 

Places given away by Government, 176. 

Plays, new, 253. 

Poole, 264. 

Pope, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 38, 91. 

Porson, 79, 108, 134, 217, 218, 219. 

Portland, Duke of, 83. 

Poussin, 155, 188. 

Praising children, 227. 

Price, Dr., 4, 5, 6, 7, 43, 106, 152. 

Price, Major, 259, 260. 

Price, Sir Uvedale, 75, 113, 114. 

Princesses, the, daughters of George the Third, 261. 

Prior, 247. 

Priestley, 121, 122. 

Pronunciation of words, 248. 

Quin, 31. 



348 INDEX TO THE KECOLLECTIONS. 

Racine, 49, 222. 
Racine, the younger, 222. 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 95. 
Ranelagh, 11. 
Raphael, 153, 154. 
. Rat, Lord Hoiuth's, 167. 
Rembrandt, 155. 
Rennell, 134. 

Revolution, the French, 176. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 77, 86, 155. 
Richardson, Joseph, 64. 
Richardson, Samuel, 180. 
Richmond, Duke of, 82. 
Richmond, Duchess of, 240. 
Robertson, 43, 44, 45, 88. 
Robinson, Mrs.,- 142. 
Robinson Crusoe, 257. 
Rochefoucauld, Duke de la, 41. 
Rogers, Samuel : 

anecdotes of his childhood, boyhood, youth, &c, passim. 

his Scribbler, 11. 

his Ode to Superstition, 16. 

his Captivity, 16. 

his lines To the Gnat, 16. 

his Pleasures of Memory, 17, 18. 

his Human Life, 18, 173, 174, 244. 

his Italy, 18. 

his Vintage of Burgundy, 18. 

his contribution to an article in The Edinburgh Review, 283. 
Romney, 63 
Rose, 244, 255, 256. 
Roslin, Lady, 254. 
Rousseau, 105. 
Rubens, 155. 
Russell, Lord John, 289. 
Russell, Thomas, 170, 171. 



INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 349 

Rutland, Duke of, 245. 
Rutland, Duchess of, 245. 

Sac chi, 86. 
Sargent, 56. 

Salisbury, Lady, 249, 250. 
Sallust, 181. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 69, 192, 193, 194, 206, 237, 247, 254, 256, 280. 
Scriptures, English version of, 220. 
Seaforth, Lord, 220. 
Segur, 104. 
Selwyn, 201. 

Shakespeare, 38, 92, 95, 149, 150, 200, 219, 221, 281. 
/ /Sharp, 1, 17, 130, 131, 195. 
Shelburne, Lord, 121, 177. 
Shelley, 235, 236. 
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 31, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 

78, 80, 118, 186, 190, 193, 227. 
Sheridan, Mrs., first wife of R. B. S., 71. 
Sheridan, Mrs., second wife of R. B. S., 230. 
Sheridan, Mrs., mother of R. B. S., 90. 
Sheridan, Thomas, 49. 

Siddons, Mrs., 58, 87, 109, 136, 151, 185, 186, 187, 200, 244. 
Skeleton in the Church-porch^ The, 164. 
Smith, Adam, 43, 44, 45. 
Smith, John, 214. 
Smith, Robert, 181,194. 
Smith, Sydney, 286, 287, 288. 
Smith, William, 81, 82. 
Soame, 17. 
Sonnet-writing, 207. 
Sophocles, 92. 

Southey, 204, 205, 220, 222, 289. 
Spencer, Lady, 10. 
Spencer, Lord, 8, 54. 
Spencer, Lord Robert, 162. 



350 INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 

Spencer, William, 218, 277. 

Spenser, Edmund, 205. 

St. John, 113. 

Stael, Madame de, 232, 250, 251. 

Standard novels, 138. 

Stanhope, Lady Hester, 253. 

Stanley, Lord, 289. 

Steevens, 134. 

Stella, Swift's, 172. 

Sterne, 114. 

Stone, John, 80. 

Stone, William, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 

Stothard, 110. 

Stowell, Lord, 142, 143. 

Sueur, Le, 86. 

Surrey, Lord, 95, 

Sutherland, Duchess-Countess of, 268. 

Swift, 50. 

Sylph, The, 190. 

Tacitus, 181. 

Talleyrand, 80, 253, 268, 269, 270. 

Tankerville, Lord, 73, 198. 

Tarleton, 248. 

Temple-Bar, rehels' heads on, 2. 

Thanet, Lord, 162. 

Thurlow, Lord Chancellor, 52, 53, 56. 

Thurlow, Edward Lord, 279. 

Tickeli, Richard, 63, 64, 71, 72. 

Tickell, Thomas, 96. 

Tierney, 82. 

Tight lacing of the ladies, 23. 

Tooke, 56, 81, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129. 

Topham, 58. 

Townley, 182, 183. 

Townshend, Lord John, 65. 



INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 351 

Tree, Miss (Mrs. Bradshaw), 276. 
Trelawney, 235, 236. 
Trotter, 97. 
Turner, 155. 
Turton, 129. 

Umbrellas, 40. 
Usher, 207. 

Vernon, 132. 
Virgil, 94, 205. 
Voltaire, 44, 48, 75, 91. 

Wakefield, 134, 140, 141. 

Wales, Prince of, 52, 53, 141, 142, 161, 191, 250, 264, 265, 266, (See 

George the Fourth.} 
Wales, Princess of, 261, 262, 263. (See Caroline, Queen,) 
Walpole, 134. 
Warburton, 26. 

Ward, 151. (See Dudley, Lord.) 
Warton, Joseph, 133. 
Warton, Thomas, 133, 134. 
Washington, 172. 
Webb, 56. 

Wellington, Duke of, 82, 268, 288, 289, 290. 
Wesley, 120. 
West, Richard, 38, 39. 
West, Benjamin, 208. 
Wewitzer, 65. 
Whyte, Lydia, 70. 
Wilberforce, 82, 112. 
Wilkes, 42, 233. 
William the Third, 26, 172. 

William the Fourth, 260. (See Clarence, Duke of.) 
Williams, Helen Maria, 50. 
Wilson, 153. 



352 INDEX TO THE RECOLLECTIONS. 

Windham, 75, 86, 96, 164. 

Winter in London, A, 191. 

Wolcot, 139. 

Woodfall, 271. 

Words twisted, &c, 43. 

Wordsworth, William, 37, 88, 138, 150, 170, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 

222, 282. 
Wordsworth, Miss, 205, 206. 
World, The, 96. 

Yoek, Duke of, 53, 66, 161, 162, 265, 266. 

York, Duchess of, 162, 163, 164. 

Young, 34. 

Youth always appearing beautiful to the old, 138. 



INDEX TO PORSONTANA. 



Ash, 304. 

Baeington, 333. 
Baker, Sir George, 296. 
Banks, 303, 317, 318, 321. 
Barker, 315. 
Bentley, 322. 
Bryant, 303. 
Burgess, 321. 
Burney, 307, 315, 316. 
Byron, Lord, 330. 

Caetee, Mrs., 326. 
Cogan, 300. 
Coray, 322. 
Cumberland, 314. 

Davy, 317, 333. 

Douglas, 303. 

Egeeton, 302. 
Elgin, Lord, 320. 

Fox, 318. 

A A 



354 INDEX TO POBSONIANA. 

Gibbon, 302, 303. 
Goodall, 296. 
Gosset, 326. 
Gurney, 300, 301. 

Heathcote, 301. 
Herbert, 323. 
Holland, Lord, 318. 
Holmes, 321. 
Hoppner, 298, 299. 
Horsley, 314. 

Jennings, 304. 
Johnson, 326. 

Kedd, 321. 

Lakchek, 322. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 318. 

Maltby, William, passim. 

Maltby, Bishop, 304, 323. 

Maltby, Mr., brother to the Bishop, 299, 319, 

Markland, 322. 

Matthias, 321. 

Musgrave, 326. 

Paley, 304. 

Parr, 313, 314, 315. 

Pearson, 322. 

Perry, 320. 

Porson, Bichard, passim. 

Porteus, 321. 

Postlethwaite, 308, 309. 

Pretyman (afterwards Tomline), 319. 

Priestley, 314, 



INDEX TO POKSONIANA. 355 



Raine, 301, 317. 
Rogers, 318, 319. 

Sheffield, Lord, 329. 
Shipley, 296. 
Southey, 330. 
Steevens, 326. 

Tayloe, 323. 
Tooke, 297, 298, 314. 
Tyrwhitt, 322. 

Villoison, 320. 

Wakefield, 316, 317. 
Wilkes, 329. 



THE END. 



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